title: Basketball

text: The game H-O-R-S-E, (pronounced horse) is played by two or more players. The player in control of the ball tries to make a shot however they want. The other player has to repeat their shot. If they miss, they get an H added, until they get enough letters to finish the word horse and they lose. If the player who has the ball missed their shot, no letter is added and control moves to the next player.


title: Basketball

text: In this variation, the players are all seated in a wheelchair. This is often played by people who cannot walk or are unable to play normal basketball. The rules are altered slightly, but the game follows the same general concepts.


title: Diwali

text: Diwali (also: Deepawali) is one of India's biggest festivals. The word 'Deepawali' means rows of lighted lamps. It is a Festival of Lights and Hindus celebrate it with joy. During this festival, people light up their houses and shops with Diyas (small cup-shaped oil lamp made of baked clay). They worship the Lord Ganesha for welfare and prosperity and Goddess Lakshmi for wealth and wisdom.


title: Diwali

text: This festival is celebrated in the Hindu month of Kartikamasam which falls sometime during October or November. It is celebrated to mark the return of Lord Rama after 14 years of exile and his victory over the Demon Ravana. In many parts of India, Deepawali is celebrated for five consecutive days. Hindus regard it as a celebration of life and use the occasion to strengthen relationships. In some parts of India, it marks the beginning of a new year. People clean and decorate their house before the festival. They do colorful rangoli art works on floors.


title: Diwali

text: Deepawali is celebrated and is a public holiday in countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago. It is also a school holiday in many states of the United States with a large Hindu population.


title: Diwali

text: Hindus light up their homes and shops to welcome the Goddess Lakshmi and to give them good luck for the year ahead. A few days before Ravtegh, which is the day before Deepavali, houses, buildings, shops and temples are thoroughly cleaned, whitewashed and decorated with pictures, toys and flowers. On the day of Deepawali, people put on their best clothes and exchange greetings, gifts and sweets with their friends and family.


title: Diwali

text: At night, buildings are illuminated with earthen lamps, candle-sticks and electric bulbs. Sweets and toy shop are decorated to attract the passers-by. The bazaars and streets are overcrowded. People buy sweets for their own families and also send them as presents to their friends and relatives. The Goddess Lakshmi is also worshiped in the form of earthen images, silver rupee. Hindus believe that on this day, Lakshmi only enters houses which are neat and tidy. People offer prayers for their own health, wealth and prosperity. They leave the light on in buildings believing that Lakshmi will not have difficulty in finding her way in.


title: Diwali

text: Diwali is one of the most important festival of the Hindus.It is also known as deepawali or the festival of lights. It comes on Amavasya day in the month of kartik. Both rich and poor wear new clothes on this day. Lots of sweets are made. People light diyas and burn crackers. They ex- change greetings and sweets. Goddess Laxmi is worshipped on this day.


title: Russia

text: Russia (), officially called the Russian Federation () is a country in Eastern Europe and North Asia, spanning from the Baltic Sea to the Bering Strait. It is the largest country in the world, followed by Canada, the United States, and China. Russia's population is about 146.7 million people. It is the most populous country in Europe. Moscow is its capital city, which is also the largest city in Europe. Russia's official language is Russian, the most spoken language in Europe, as well as the most widely spoken Slavic language.


title: Russia

text: Russia shares land borders with 16 countries, in both Europe and Asia: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It has links with 16 seas, and 3 oceans; and is the country with the most land borders in the world.


title: Russia

text: Russia is a very large and diverse country. From 1922 to 1991, it was the main part of the Soviet Union. It was a country based on communism, but today its government is a federal semi-presidential republic. It has elements of democracy. The President is chosen by direct election, but challenging candidates do not have access to the mass media, although they have full access to social media, internet news websites, and international media, and election results match domestic, international, and exit polling. Its current President is Vladimir Putin. The President rules the country, and the Russian Parliament plays a secondary role.


title: Russia

text: At , Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the world's eighth most populous nation with 140 million people as of 2022. Russia produces a lot of energy made from oil and natural gas.


title: Russia

text: Extending from eastern Europe across the whole of northern Asia, Russia spans eleven time zones and has a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, and its lakes contain about one-quarter of the world's fresh water.


title: Russia

text: Russia is a federal semi-presidential republic. It has a president and a parliament. Russia has 85 federal subjects (territorial units). All subjects of the federation shall be equal. All entities are subject to uniform federal law. Subjects of the federation have two representatives in the parliament. Subjects of the Russian Federation do not have the right to secede from it. Important issues are decided by the Federation President; lesser powers are given to the member republics.


title: Russia

text: At the end of the twentieth century, Russia experienced many political changes. Some people fought to leave the federation.


title: Russia

text: Elections are held at all levels. According to Steve White, the present government made it clear that they had no plans of making a "second edition" of the American or British political system. Instead they wanted a system that was closer to Russia's own traditions. Richard Sakwa wrote that the Russian government is considered legitimate by the majority of the Russian people. It seeks to deliver a set of public goods without trying to fit to extra-democratic logic to achieve them. Whether the system is becoming less autocratic (dictatorial) is debatable.


title: Russia

text: The United Russia is the ruling party, which supports the government. The other parties in the Duma (Russian parliament) do not criticize the government strongly, for fear of losing their places in the Duma. Many opposition parties, for the "People's Freedom Party" and the "Other Russia," have been unable to register due to the strict rules. In the 2000s, the government led a war in Chechnya, and in the process, civil liberties and independent media were restricted. Corruption is widespread and human rights, especially in the North Caucasus, are frequently violated. In 2008, Putin's government was in a war with Georgia in a dispute over a region with many ethnic Russians .


title: Russia

text: Russia's history began when the East Slavs formed a group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The Vikings and their descendants founded the first East Slavic state of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century. They adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. This form of Christianity influenced Russian culture greatly. Kievan Rus' eventually broke up and the lands were divided into many small feudal states. The most powerful successor state to Kievan Rus' was the Grand Duchy of Moscow. This area served as the main force in later Russian unification and the fight against the Golden Horde from Asia. Moscow slowly gained control of the regions around it and took over the cultural and political life of Kievan Rus'.


title: Russia

text: In the 18th century, the nation had expanded through conquest, annexation and exploration to become the Russian Empire, the third-largest empire in history. It stretched from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth eastward to the Pacific Ocean and Alaska. The empire was ruled by an emperor called the Tsar.


title: Russia

text: Peter the Great ruled Russia from 1689 until 1725. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to a new city named Saint Petersburg. He made Russian society more modern in many ways. The government began building ships for the Russian navy.


title: Russia

text: The Russo-Japanese War started in 1904 and ended in 1905 with Japan winning the war. The Russian defeat was one of the reasons for later revolutions.


title: Russia

text: In October 1917, the Bolsheviks (later called "Communists"), influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, took over the country and murdered the Tsar, as well as other people who stood against them . Once they took power, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, created the first Marxist communist state.


title: Russia

text: From the 1920s to the 1950s, Joseph Stalin ruled as the absolute dictator of Soviet Russia, and destroyed anything and anyone that was against his rule. For example, he took the property of farmers and shopkeepers. Many millions of people starved and died in famines because of this. Stalin also removed, or "purged", all military members who were not loyal to him, and many were killed or sent to prison camps, or gulags, for many years. Even in the gulags, many prisoners died.


title: Russia

text: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany agreed not to attack each other in 1939. In June 1941, Germany broke the agreement and attacked in Operation Barbarossa. The attack was part of World War II. The war lasted in Europe until May 1945, and Russia lost more than 20 million people during that time. In spite of this large loss, Russia was one of the winners of the war and became a world superpower.


title: Russia

text: From 1922 to 1991, Russia was the largest part of the Soviet Union, or the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR). People sometimes used the name "Russia" for the whole Soviet Union, or sometimes "Soviet Russia". Russia was only one of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. The republic was in fact named the "Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic" (RSFSR).


title: Russia

text: The Soviet Union fell apart in the early 1990s. Russia took over the place of the USSR in the United Nations (UN).


title: Russia

text: Boris Yeltsin was made the President of Russia in June 1991, in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. Wide-ranging reforms took place, for example privatization and free trade laws. Radical changes (shock therapy) were recommended by the United States and International Monetary Fund. A major economic crisis followed. There was 50% decline in GDP and industrial output between 1990 and 1995.


title: Russia

text: The privatization largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in the government system. Many of the newly rich businesspeople took billions in cash and assets outside of the country. The depression of state and economy led to the collapse of social services. Millions went into poverty, from 1.5% of people being in poverty in the late Soviet era to 39–49% by mid-1993. The 1990s had extreme corruption and lawlessness, and the rise of criminal gangs and violent crime.


title: Russia

text: The 1990s had many armed conflicts in the North Caucasus. There were both local ethnic battles and separatist Islamist insurrections. Because the Chechen separatists declared independence in the early 1990s, a Chechen War was fought between the rebel groups and the Russian military. Terrorist attacks against civilians caused hundreds of deaths. The most notable of these were the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school siege.


title: Russia

text: Russia took responsibility for settling the USSR's external debts, even though its population made up just half of the population of the USSR at the time of its dissolution. High budget deficits caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis and resulted in more GDP decline.


title: Russia

text: On 31 December 1999, President Yeltsin resigned (quit being the president). The job of president was given to the recently appointed Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. Putin then won the 2000 presidential election. Putin stopped the Chechen rebellion quickly, but violence still occurs in the Northern Caucasus at times.


title: Russia

text: High oil prices and initially weak currency followed by increasing domestic demand, consumption and investments has helped the economy grow for nine straight years. This improved the standard of living and increased Russia's influence on the world stage. While many reforms made during the Putin presidency have been criticized by Western nations as un-democratic, Putin's leadership led to stability and progress. This won him widespread popularity in Russia.


title: Russia

text: On 2 March 2008, Dmitry Medvedev was elected President of Russia, whilst Putin became Prime Minister. Putin went back to being the president after the 2012 presidential elections, and Medvedev was made the Prime Minister.


title: Russia

text: On 24 February 2022, the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine, starting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Russia

text: The most western point of Russia is near Kaliningrad, formerly named Königsberg. The most eastern point of Russia is Diomid Island, 35 km from Chukotka (Russia) and from Alaska (USA). The most southern point is in Caucasus, on the border with Azerbaijan. The most northern point is on the Franz Josef Land archipelago in Arctic Ocean, from the North Pole.


title: Russia

text: Russia's capital and biggest city is Moscow. The second biggest city is Saint Petersburg, which was the capital of Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries.


title: Russia

text: Russia has a population of 142 million people. Most people (73.7%) live in cities. The population decreased by 5 million people after the fall of the Soviet Union. The current population growth is close to zero, and the population went down by 0.085% in 2008.


title: Russia

text: Russia's area is about 17 million square kilometers (6.5 million sq. mi.). It is the largest country in the world. Its population density is about 8.3 people per square kilometer (21.5 per sq. mi.). This is one of the lowest country densities in the world. The population is most dense in the European part of the country, centering around Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Siberia has a very low density.


title: Russia

text: The main religion in Russia is the Russian Orthodox Church. It is one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches.


title: Russia

text: Some very famous composers that were born in Russia during the 20th century were Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Russia has produced some of the greatest pianists: Anton Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Vladimir Ashkenazy are among the all-time greats.


title: Russia

text: Russian composer Tchaikovsky created famous ballets, for example The Nutcracker. The impressario Sergei Diaghilev was responsible for the development of ballet in the early 20th century with the Ballets Russes. Dance companies at the Mariinsky Theatre and the Bolshoi Ballet produced many famous dancers.


title: Russia

text: Russians have made many famous works of literature. Alexander Pushkin is considered a founder of modern Russian literature. He was a poet from the 19th century.


title: Russia

text: Other famous poets and writers of the 19th century were Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol (he was born in what is now Ukraine, but during his lifetime Ukraine was a part of Russia), Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Many people think Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are two of the greatest novelists ever. Three Russians won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the 20th century: Boris Pasternak (1958), Mikhail Sholokhov (1965) and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1980). Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" was also a novel of the highest quality.


title: Russia

text: Soccer, ice hockey and basketball are some of the most popular sports in Russia. Boxing, gymnastics, weightlifting, and tennis are also popular sports. Track suits are popular clothing items for many Russians. Some examples of famous Russian sports people are former tennis world number one Maria Sharapova, who has won three Grand Slam titles, and was the world's highest paid female athlete in 2008.


title: Russia

text: After the 1952 Olympic Games, Soviet and later Russian athletes have been third place in gold medals collected at the Summer Olympics. The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were hosted in Moscow, while the 2014 Winter Olympics were hosted in Sochi.


title: Russia

text: For the 2018 Winter Olympics, which were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, a lot of athletes could not compete because the International Olympic Committee found out they had been doping. Those who were not caught doping were able to play in the 2018 Olympics as "Olympic Athletes from Russia". They won two gold medals, and one in ice hockey.


title: Russia

text: Chess is the main intellectual sport in Russia. In the 20th century, there were nine Russian World Chess Champions, more than all other nations combined.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi Cuccittini (Spanish pronunciation: [ljoˈnel anˈdɾes ˈmesi]) (born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine footballer. He plays for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and the Argentina national team as a forward.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Many experts and critics consider Messi as one of the greatest football players of all time. Some people even say he is the greatest player ever. Messi has seven Ballon d'Or awards, the most of any player, and two more than Cristiano Ronaldo. His playing style and skills are very similar to the Argentine legend Diego Maradona because of their short height. There is much competition between him and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo because of their similar skill levels.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi was born and raised in Rosario, Argentina. Messi is the third of four children of Jorge Messi and his wife Celia Cuccittini. He has two brothers named Rodrigo and Matias and two cousins named Maximiliano and Emanuel.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi's grandmother died when he was 12, and after that he generally celebrates his goals by pointing up in the sky in tribute of his grandmother.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi began football at a young age and his potential was quickly seen by Barcelona. He left Newell's Old Boys' youth team in September 2000 and moved with his family to Europe in February 2001. He officially signed with Barcelona in December 2000 on a napkin. They moved to Spain because Barcelona offered their help to treat his growth hormone deficiency, and Newell's didn't offer any help.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi played his first professional match at 16 years old on 16 November 2003 against Porto. He played the 2003-04 season with the Barcelona B team. He was promoted to the A team for the 2004-05 season, and made his league debut on 16 October 2004 against Espanyol as a substitute. He made his league debut at age 17, and became the youngest player to play for Barcelona's first team in an official competition. He scored his first professional goal on 1 May 2005 against Albacete Balompie from a sublime assist by Ronaldinho. The goal made him the youngest-ever scorer for the club at that time. Barcelona won the La Liga that season for the first time in 6 years, and won the league for a second time in a row along with the Spanish Super Cup and UEFA Champions League in 2006.


title: Lionel Messi

text: His first breakthrough season was in the 2006–07 season; he became a first team regular by scoring his first hat-trick of his career in El Clásico. On 18 April 2007, he scored a goal almost exactly identical to Maradona's "Goal of the Century" against England in the 1986 World Cup, where Maradona got the ball behind the halfway line on the right side and beat 4 defenders and the goalie to score. Messi's goal was similar to this; he received a pass from Xavi on the right side behind half-field, and then nut-megged an opponent and 4 others including the goalie before finishing off with his right foot inside the penalty box. In 2019, Barcelona fans voted it as the best goal in the club's history, receiving 45% of votes. After Ronaldinho left the club at the end of the 2007-08 season, Messi was handed the number 10 shirt. The 2008-09 season was arguably one of the most successful seasons in his stellar career. In this season, Messi scored 38 goals in all competitions, including one in the Champions League final against Manchester United that Barcelona won 2–0 as part of their treble. In the following 2009–10 season, Messi scored 47 goals in all competitions. That levelled to Ronaldo Nazario's record total for Barcelona. Messi also won his first Ballon d'Or in December 2009, and also won his second a year later. He scored again in the 2011 Champions League final against their same opponent two years earlier, Manchester United. Barcelona won 3-1. Messi won his third Ballon d'Or in a row that year.


title: Lionel Messi

text: After a situation involving FC Barcelona and their overwhelming wage bill, Messi made the most shocking transfer to the French football club Paris-Saint Germain.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi was allowed to play for both Spain and Argentina since he had dual-nationality, but he decided to play for his home country, Argentina. He led the team to the final game of the 2005 U-20 World Cup by scoring important goals in the knockout stages. Messi scored two goals in the final against Nigeria, and Argentina won 2–1. In addition to receiving a winner's medal, Messi was also awarded the Golden Shoe for most goals scored (6), and Golden Ball for best player.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi played his first game with the senior team on 17 August 2005 against Hungary. He came on as a substitute. However, he was shown a red card 45 seconds into the game for hitting an opponent in the face on accident while Messi was trying to pull the opponent off from his shirt. Messi scored his first goal for Argentina in a friendly match against Croatia on 1 March 2006. Argentina lost the game 3-2. He was selected for the 2006 World Cup by coach José Pekerman. In Argentina's second game against Serbia, he became their youngest player to play at a World Cup. He also assisted a goal scored the last one in the 6–0 victory. That goal made him the youngest goalscorer in the 2006 World Cup.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi won the 2008 Olympics with Argentina as well, as he assisted Ángel Di Maria's goal in the final against Nigeria in Beijing. Messi was made captain of the national team in 2011. He scored his first hat-trick with the country in his 68th appearance during a 3-1 victory against Switzerland in February 2012.


title: Lionel Messi

text: On 21 June 2016, he broke the top scoring record for Argentina by scoring his 55th goal with a gem of a free-kick against the United States in the Copa América Centenario. It was regarded as the best free-kick scored by Messi during his career. The record was previously held by Gabriel Batistuta with 54 goals.


title: Lionel Messi

text: On 26 June, Argentina once again lost to Chile on penalties 4-2 in the Copa América Centenario final after a 0–0 tie. Messi missed his penalty in the penalty shootout. This was Messi's third consecutive defeat in a major tournament final with Argentina, and his fourth overall. A day after the match, Messi announced his retirement from international football. In an emotional interview after the game, he said he was very sad that he missed the penalty and also sad that he wasn't able to win any trophies in four finals.


title: Lionel Messi

text: After a slow start to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, he helped Argentina qualify to the next round of the competition by scoring the first goal in the 2-1 win over Nigeria.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Jumping to 2021 with the new coach, Lionel Scaloni, Argentina won the Copa America in June. With Dimaria's goal in the 11th minute, they beat Brazil 1-0 in their home ground. Which was one of the main reasons for Messi winning the Ballon do'r for the record 7th time and counting.


title: Lionel Messi

text: In the mid-year 2022 Messi and the amazing Argentina team along with Lionel Scaloni beat Italy 3-0 and won the Finalissma trophy.


title: Lionel Messi

text: Messi has three children with his wife Antonella Roccuzzo. They are named Thiago Messi, Mateo Messi and Ciro Messi. Thiago was born on 2 November 2012, Mateo was born on 11 September 2015 and Ciro was born on 10 March 2018. On the bottom of Messi's cleats is the name of his first son, Thiago.


title: Lionel Messi

text: When not playing on the field, Messi finds time to do charity work. He started the Leo Messi Foundation in 2007 which helps children in at-risk situations. Messi also opened a kids park for children living in a hospital in Barcelona. He also donated 1 million euros for the Covid-19 virus in Barcelona.


title: Lionel Messi

text: In July 2016 he was convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to spend 21 months in prison. Messi was also fined two million Euros. Messi never went to prison, and the problem was be solved with probation. He told the court he "only played football" and didn't know anything because he left his money problems to be dealt with by his father, Jorge Messi.


title: Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

text: In the Name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate or Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem (Arabic: 'بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ) is an Arabic phrase meaning "in the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . " Bismillah is abbreviated. The Holy Qur'an 114 of Surah Al-repentance other than the rest of the chapter 113 has been started, "Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim with". It is alsoknown from the hadith that the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad ,used to say "Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem" before starting any work. In many works "Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem" There are instructions to say or write. In legal terms, even if it is masnun or mustahab, its significance is very deep.


title: Ejaculation

text: Ejaculation is when a male person (or other male mammal) shoots out liquid from his erect penis after it has been aroused or stimulated (excited sexually). It happens when he has an orgasm. This article is about ejaculation in human beings.


title: Ejaculation

text: When a man is stimulated, his penis becomes erect. When he has an orgasm, semen comes out from the end of his penis. Semen contains sperm and other substances. How long a man can be stimulated before ejaculating, how long the ejaculation lasts, the strength of the ejaculation, and the amount of semen that comes out, all vary from one man to another. When a man ejaculates, he has a very good feeling in his penis and in his groin area (the part of his body where his torso joins the top of his legs). A man can ejaculate after he masturbates, is touched by someone else sexually, and sometimes, even if he is not touched (for example, if he looks at pictures and videos on the internet that cause sexual arousal, or thinks about sex). Ejaculation can also happen without control when a man is sleeping, which is called a wet dream.


title: Ejaculation

text: Slang terms for ejaculation are "blowing a load" or "blowing a wad", and "busting a nut". "creaming", "cumming", "jizzing", "nutting", "jazzing", "spurting", "squirting" and "skeeting". Ejaculation takes place when the man has an orgasm (the height of sexual excitement), usually after his genitals have been physically stimulated in some way. However, ejaculation can also happen if a man has not been touched, for instance if he becomes aroused or stimulated (made sexually excited) by looking at sexy pictures, watching sexy videos, or thinking about sex. When a man ejaculates while sleeping, it is called nocturnal emission.


title: Ejaculation

text: Before a man can ejaculate, his penis needs to be stimulated. The penis is usually soft, quite short and hangs down. When a man is stimulated, for example by seeing another naked person, masturbating or being touched by someone else sexually, the inside of his penis fills with blood. This causes it to become longer, thicker, harder and to stand upright, and is called an erection. Men can be stimulated for different amounts of time before they ejaculate.


title: Ejaculation

text: After a man has ejaculated, his penis usually becomes soft and shorter again. He may also have an enjoyable and relaxing feeling in his groin area. It takes some time before he can have another erection and ejaculation. This time is called the refractory period. The average refractory period is about half an hour. Younger men normally have a shorter refractory period than older men. Men who are 18 years old have a refractory period of about 15 minutes, while men in their 70s have one of about 20 hours. Some men's penises remain hard after one ejaculation, and they are able to have another ejaculation after some time without losing their erection. Most young and middle-aged men can probably have about two to three ejaculations in a few hours, but it has been said that some men are able to have up to nine ejaculations a day.


title: Ejaculation

text: When a man ejaculates before he wants to, this is called premature ejaculation. If a man cannot ejaculate after having been aroused for a long time, even though he wants to, this is called delayed ejaculation or anorgasmia. A man who is unable to ejaculate at all is said to have anejaculation. Some men are able to have an orgasm without ejaculating. This is called a dry orgasm.


title: Ejaculation

text: Apart from giving a man pleasure, ejaculation may help a man stay healthy. A study carried out in Australia seemed to show that men who ejaculate often have less chance of getting prostate cancer.


title: Ejaculation

text: Semen is known informally as "cum", "jism" or "jizz". Men ejaculate different amounts of semen. Normally, an ejaculation makes between 1.5 and 5 millilitres (up to one teaspoonful) of semen. More semen tends to come out if a man has not ejaculated for many days, or if he has been stimulated for a long time. Older men produce less semen. If a man ejaculates an unusually small amount of semen, this is a medical condition called hypospermia.


title: Ejaculation

text: Semen is usually a white or yellowish fluid. It starts off being slightly thick and sticky, then after a while it becomes more watery. Semen contains many chemicals. These include citric acid, fructose (a type of sugar), enzymes that speed up chemical reactions in the body, lipids (substances that fat is made of), and slippery fluids that help the semen to move through the urethra.


title: Ejaculation

text: If there are an unusually low number of sperm in an ejaculation, this is called oligospermia. If there are no sperm at all, this is called azoospermia. A man with oligospermia or azoospermia is usually infertile, and cannot or finds it very hard to make a woman pregnant by having sex with her.


title: Ejaculation

text: If a man has a sexually transmitted infection or STI (an infection that is passed from one person to another by sex), the germs that cause the disease can appear in his semen. If the person that the man has sex with touches the semen, he or she can become infected by the germs and pick up the disease. AIDS, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, herpes and syphillis are examples of STIs. One of the ways for a man to lower the chance of passing on an STI to his sexual partner is to wear a condom on his penis when having sex.


title: Ejaculation

text: When a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, he places his penis within her vagina and moves his penis back and forth, typically in a thrusting motion, while the woman moves her hips. The vagina is warm and somewhat moist, and it places pressure on the man's penis. These sensations, combined with the friction caused by the in-and-out movements, stimulates the penis, which causes the man to have an orgasm and to ejaculate. If the woman is using birth control this will usually not cause her to become pregnant. Otherwise, the sperm in the semen can travel into the woman's uterus and Fallopian tubes. If there happens to be an ovum or egg cell in a Fallopian tube, a sperm may fuse with the ovum. This is called fertilization, and makes the woman pregnant.


title: Ejaculation

text: However, before a man ejaculates, a clear, colorless, sticky fluid called pre-ejaculate (also known as pre-ejaculate fluid or informally as pre-cum) can come out of his penis. Pre-ejaculate is produced by the bulbourethral or Cowper's glands. Some tests have shown that pre-ejaculate does not contain any sperm. However, some sperm may have been left behind in the urethra from an earlier ejaculation and the pre-ejaculate may carry this sperm out of the penis. That is why a woman can become pregnant even if the man pulls his penis out of her vagina before he ejaculates. Also, if a man ejaculates near the woman's vagina and semen falls on her body, sperm can accidentally enter the vagina and cause a pregnancy. To avoid the woman becoming pregnant when she does not want to, the man and the woman can use methods of contraception or birth control. For example, the man can wear a condom on his penis, or the woman can take birth control pills.


title: Ejaculation

text: Young boys cannot ejaculate. A boy's first ejaculation usually happens about one year after he begins puberty, which is when his body starts changing into a man's body. Most boys go through puberty in their teens. The first time a boy ejaculates usually happens when he is asleep. This is called a nocturnal emission (which means "an emission happening at night") or a wet dream. It happens without the boy's control, often when he is having a dream about sex. Scientists believe that wet dreams are the body's way of removing too much semen. When a boy begins masturbating, wet dreams usually stop happening.


title: Ejaculation

text: When a boy starts to ejaculate, he usually produces only a small amount of semen. The semen is different from what an adult man produces. It is usually clear and stays sticky. It either has no sperm in it, or sperm that do not move properly or do not move at all. A boy's semen only becomes like an adult man's semen about two years after his first ejaculation.


title: Earth

text: Earth is the third planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the only planet known to have life on it. The Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. It is one of four rocky planets on the inner side of the Solar System. The other three are Mercury, Venus, and Mars.


title: Earth

text: The large mass of the Sun keeps the Earth in orbit through the force of gravity. Earth also turns around in space, so that different parts face the Sun at different times. Earth goes around the Sun once (one year) for every 365 times it turns around (one day).


title: Earth

text: Earth is the only planet in the Solar System that has a large amount of liquid water on its surface. About 74% of the surface of Earth is covered by liquid or frozen water. Because of this, people sometimes call it the blue planet.


title: Earth

text: Because of its water, Earth is home to millions of species of plants and animals which need water to survive. The things that live on Earth have changed its surface greatly. For example, early cyanobacteria changed the air and gave it oxygen. The living part of Earth's surface is called the "biosphere".


title: Earth

text: Earth is one of the eight planets in the Solar System. There are also thousands of small bodies which move around the Sun. The Solar System is moving through the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and will be for about the next 10,000 years.


title: Earth

text: Earth is about away from the Sun (this distance is called an "Astronomical Unit"). It moves on its orbit at an average speed of about . Earth turns all the way around about 365 times in the time it takes for Earth to go all the way around the Sun. To make up this extra bit of a day every year, an additional day is used every four years. This is named a "leap year".


title: Earth

text: The Moon goes around Earth at an average distance of . It is locked to Earth, so that it always has the same half facing Earth; the other half is called the "dark side of the moon". It takes about 27 days for the Moon to go all the way around Earth, but because Earth is moving around the Sun at the same time, it takes about 29 days for the Moon to go from dark to bright to dark again. This is where the word "month" came from, even though most months now have 30 or 31 days.


title: Earth

text: Earth and the other planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago. Their origin was quite different from that of the Sun. The Sun was formed almost entirely of hydrogen, while the planets were formed mostly from higher elements. The smaller "rocky" planets are made almost entirely of higher elements. The Sun must have moved through areas where supernovae had previously exploded. All the planets have higher elements which are only made in supernovae. Only the so-called "gas giants" have much hydrogen and helium.


title: Earth

text: The Moon may have been formed after a collision between the early Earth and a smaller planet (sometimes called "Theia"). Scientists believe that parts of both planets broke off becoming (by gravity) the Moon.


title: Earth

text: Earth's water came from different places. Condensing water vapour, and comets and asteroids hitting Earth, made the oceans. Within a billion years (that is at about 3.6 billion years ago) the first life evolved, in the Archaean era. Some bacteria developed photosynthesis, which let them make food from the Sun's light and water. This released a lot of oxygen, which was first taken up by iron in solution. Eventually, free oxygen got into the atmosphere or air, making Earth's surface suitable for aerobic life (see Great Oxygenation Event). This oxygen also formed the ozone layer which protects life from ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Complex life on the surface of the land did not exist before the ozone layer.


title: Earth

text: Earth's land and climate has been very different in the past. About 3 to 3.5 billion years ago almost all land was in one place. This is called a supercontinent. The earliest known supercontinent was called Vaalbara. Much later, there was a time (the Cryogenian) when Earth was almost entirely covered by thick ice sheets (glaciers). This is discussed as the Snowball Earth theory.


title: Earth

text: Earth is rocky. It is the largest of the rocky planets moving around the Sun by mass and by size. It is much smaller than the gas giants such as Jupiter.


title: Earth

text: Overall, Earth is made of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%). The 1.2% left over is made of many different kinds of other chemicals. Some rare metals (not just gold and platinum) are very valuable. Rare Earth metals are used in all types of electronic phones and computers.


title: Earth

text: The structure of Earth changes from the inside to the outside. The center of earth (Earth's core) is mostly iron (88.8%), nickel (5.8%), sulfur (4.5%), and less than 1% other things. The Earth's crust is largely oxygen (47%). Oxygen is normally a gas but it can join with other chemicals to make compounds like water and rocks. 99.22% of rocks have oxygen in them. The most common oxygen-having rocks are silica (made with silicon), alumina (made with aluminium), rust (made with iron), lime (made with calcium), magnesia (made with magnesium), potash (made with potassium), and sodium oxide, and there are others as well.


title: Earth

text: Earth's shape is a spheroid: not quite a sphere because it is slightly squashed on the top and bottom. The shape is called an oblate spheroid. As Earth spins around itself, centrifugal force forces the equator out a little and pulls the poles in a little. The equator, around the middle of Earth's surface, is about long. The reason the Earth is roughly a sphere (and so are all planets and stars) is gravity. Meteorites, on the other hand may be any shape because, in their case, the force of gravity is too weak to change their shape.


title: Earth

text: The highest mountain above sea level—the well-known Mount Everest (which is above sea level)—is "not" actually the one that is the farthest away from the center of the Earth. Instead, the sleeping volcano Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is; it is only above sea level but it is almost at the equator. Because of this, Mount Chimborazo is from the center of the Earth, while Mount Everest is closer to it. Similarly, the lowest point below sea level that we are conscious of is the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It is about below sea level, but, again, there are probably places at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean that are nearer to the center of the Earth.


title: Earth

text: The deepest hole ever dug is only about . We know something about the inside of the Earth, though, because we can learn things from earthquakes and the times when volcanoes erupt. We are able to see how quickly the shock waves move through Earth in different places.


title: Earth

text: The inside of Earth is very different from the outside. Almost all of Earth's liquid water is in the seas or close to the surface. The surface also has a lot of oxygen, which comes from plants. Small and simple kinds of life can live far under the surface, but animals and plants only live on the surface or in the seas. The rocks on the surface of Earth (Earth's crust) are well known. They are thicker where there is land, between thick. Under the seas they are sometimes only thick. There are three groups of rocks that make up most of the Earth's crust. Some rock is made when the hot liquid rock comes from inside the earth (igneous rocks); another type of rock is made when sediment is laid down, usually under the sea (sedimentary rocks); and a third kind of rock is made when the other two are changed by very high temperature or pressure (metamorphic rocks). A very few rocks also fall out of the sky (meteorites).


title: Earth

text: Below the crust is hot and almost-liquid rock which is always moving around (the Earth's mantle). Then, there is a thin liquid layer of heated rock (the outer core). This is very hot: . The middle of the inside of the Earth would be liquid as well but all the pressure of the rock above it makes it a solid. This solid middle part (the inner core) is almost all iron. It is what makes the Earth magnetic.


title: Earth

text: The Earth's crust is solid but made of parts which move very slowly. The thin skin of hard rock on the outside of the Earth rests on hot liquid material below it in the deeper mantle. This liquid material moves because it gets heat from the hot center of the Earth. The slow movement of the plates is what causes earthquakes, volcanoes and large groups of mountains on the Earth.


title: Earth

text: There are three ways plates can come together. Two plates can move towards each other ("convergent" plate edges). This can form islands, volcanoes, and high mountain ranges (such as the Andes and Himalayas). Two plates can move away from each other ("divergent" plate edges). This gives the warm liquid rock inside the earth a place to come out. This makes special mountain ranges below the sea or large low lands like Africa's Great Rift Valley. Plates are able to move beside each other as well ("transform" plate edges, such as the San Andreas Fault). This makes their edges crush against each other and makes many shocks as they move.


title: Earth

text: The outside of the Earth is not even. There are high places called mountains, and high flat places called plateaus. There are low places called valleys and canyons. For the most part, moving air and water from the sky and seas damages rocks in high places and breaks them into small pieces. The air and water then move these pieces to lower places. Because of this, the Earth would have been very flat a long time before now. The fundamental cause of the differences in the Earth's surface is plate tectonics. The shape of the entire planet itself is not even a ball. Because of its velocity, Earth has a slight bulge at the Equator.


title: Earth

text: All places on Earth are made of, or are on top of, rocks. The outside of the Earth is usually not uncovered rock. Over 70% of the Earth is covered by seas full of salty water. This salty water makes up about 97% of all Earth's water. The fresh water people can drink is mostly ice. Only a very small amount is in rivers and under the Earth for people to drink and use. The air above the Earth stops the water from going away into outer space. Also, much of the land on Earth is covered with plants, or with what is left from earlier living things. Places with very little rain are dry wastes called deserts. Deserts usually have few living things, but life is able to grow very quickly when these wastes have rainfall. Places with large amounts of rain may be large woods. Lately, people have changed the environment of the Earth a great deal.


title: Earth

text: All around the Earth is the of air (the atmosphere). The mass of the Earth holds the gasses in the air down and does not let them go into outer space. The air is mostly made of nitrogen (about 78%) and oxygen (about 21%) and there are a few other gasses as well. Most living things need the air (or parts of the air gripped in the water) to breathe and live. They use the gasses—especially oxygen and carbon dioxide—to make and use sugar and to give themselves power.


title: Earth

text: The air animals and plants use to live is only the first level of the air around the Earth (the troposphere). The day to day changes in this level of air are called weather; the larger differences between distant places and from year to year are called the climate. Rain and storms come about because this part of the air gets colder as it goes up. Cold air becomes thicker and falls, and warm air becomes thinner and goes up. The turning Earth moves the air as well and air moves north and south because the middle of the Earth generally gets more power from the Sun and is warmer than the north and south points. Air over warm water evaporates but, because cold air is not able to take in as much water, it starts to make clouds and rain as it gets colder. The way water moves around in a circle like this is called the water cycle.


title: Earth

text: Above this first level, there are four other levels. The air gets colder as it goes up in the first level; in the second level (the stratosphere), the air gets warmer as it goes up. This level has a special kind of oxygen called ozone. The ozone in this air keeps living things safe from damaging rays from the Sun. The power from these rays is what makes this level warmer and warmer. The middle level (the mesosphere) gets colder and colder with height; the fourth level (the thermosphere) gets warmer and warmer; and the last level (the exosphere) is almost outer space and has very little air at all. It reaches about half the way to the Moon. The three outer levels have a lot of electric power moving through them; this is called the ionosphere and is important for radio and other electric waves in the air. It is also where the Northern Lights are.


title: Earth

text: Even though air seems very light, the weight of all of the air above the outside of the Earth (air pressure) is important. Generally, from sea level to the top of the outer level of the air, a space of air one cm across has a mass of about 1.03 kg and a space of air one sq in across has a weight of about 14.7 lb. Because of the air, small meteorites generally burn up long before they get to the earth.


title: Earth

text: The air also keeps the Earth warm, specially the half turned away from the Sun. Some gasses – especially methane and carbon dioxide – work like a blanket to keep things warm. In the past, the Earth has been much warmer and much colder than it is now. Since people have grown used to the heat we have now, though, we do not want the Earth to be too much warmer or colder. Most of the ways people create electric power use burning kinds of carbon—especially coal, oil, and natural gas. Burning these creates new carbon dioxide and can cause more warming. A large discussion is going on now about what people should do about the Earth's latest warming, which has gone on for about 150 years. So far, this warming has been acceptable: plants have grown better. The weather has been better than when it was colder. Bad things may happen if the warming goes on.


title: Earth

text: About eight billion people live on Earth. They live in about 200 different lands called countries. Some, for example, Russia, are large with many large cities. Others, for example, Vatican City, are small. The seven countries with the most people are China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil and Nigeria. About 90% of people live in the northern hemisphere of the world, which has most of the land. Human beings originally came from Africa. Now, 70% of all people do not live in Africa but in Europe and Asia.


title: Earth

text: People change the Earth in many ways. They have been able to grow plants for food and clothes for about ten thousand years. When there was enough food, they were able to build towns and cities. Near these places, men and women were able to change rivers, bring water to farms, and stop floods (rising water) from coming over their land. People found useful animals and bred them so they were easier to keep.


title: Partition of India

text: The Partition of India divided British India into the countries of India and Pakistan (East and West Pakistan) in 1947. That was part of the end of British Raj, British rule in the Indian subcontinent. One reason for partition was the two-nation theory, which was presented by Syed Ahmed Khan and stated that Muslims and Hindus were too different to be in one country. Pakistan became a Muslim country. India became a majority Hindu country and became nominally secular country in 1974 when the word 'secular' was added to the Preamble of Indian Constitution.


title: Partition of India

text: The main supporter for partition was Muhammad Ali Jinnah; he became the first Governor-General of Pakistan.


title: Partition of India

text: Millions of people moved across the new Radcliffe Line between the two newly formed states. The population of British India in 1947 was about 570 million. After partition, there were 370 million people in India, 170 million in West Pakistan and 30 million people in East Pakistan.


title: Partition of India

text: Once the lines had been established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the safety of their religious majority. The 1951 Pakistani Census showed the number of displaced there at 7,226,600. They were presumably Muslims who had entered Pakistan from India. Similarly, the 1951 Indian Census showed 7,295,870 displaced people, apparently Hindus and Sikhs who had moved to India from Pakistan. Both numbers add up to 14.5 million. Other people came from China to take advantage of the open border.


title: Partition of India

text: The newly formed governments were unable to deal with the forced migration of such huge numbers. Massive violence occurred on both sides of the new border. Hundreds of thousands died; some estimates are in the millions.


title: Partition of India

text: The partition caused a lot of uncertainty in many parts of the new nations, especially in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, parts of which went to both countries, which went to war several times to try to take the whole region.


title: MS Dhoni

text: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, commonly known as MS Dhoni and Mahi, is an Indian cricketer player and was a former captain of the Indian cricket team. Dhoni is a right-handed batsman.


title: MS Dhoni

text: The Indian cricket team won the 2011 Cricket World Cup under his captainship. His Test cricket and One Day International records are the best of all Indian captains to date. He took over the ODI captaincy from Rahul Dravid in 2007 and led the team to its first ever inter-country ODI series wins in Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Dhoni also holds the post of Vice-President of India Cements Ltd. after resigning from Air India. India Cements is the owner of the Indian Premier League team Chennai Super Kings, and Dhoni has been its captain since the first edition of IPL.


title: MS Dhoni

text: Dhoni was given many awards, such as the ICC ODI Player of the Year award in 2008 and 2009 (the first Indian player to achieve this), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2007 and the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2009.


title: MS Dhoni

text: MS Dhoni was a right-handed batsman and also played the role of a wicket-keeper. He mostly played shots in the goo foot, that is, shifting his body weight on the right leg. He has his own famous cricket shot, called the "Helicopter", that can pick balls and send them in the galleries for six.


title: B. R. Ambedkar

text: Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956), popularly known as Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was an Indian jurist, economist, politician and social reformer. He inspired the Dalit Buddhist Movement and campaigned against social discrimination against Untouchables (Dalits), and also supported the rights of women and labour. He was independent India's first law minister, the principal architect of the Constitution of India.


title: B. R. Ambedkar

text: In 1956, in Deekshabhoomi, he initiated a mass conversion of Dalits, converting to Buddhism with 600,000 supporters. He revived Buddhism in India. Ambedkar is regarded as a bodhisattva, and the Maitreya, among the Navayana Buddhists.


title: B. R. Ambedkar

text: In 1990, the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, was posthumously conferred upon Ambedkar. Ambedkar's legacy includes numerous memorials and depictions in popular culture. Ambedkar's legacy as a socio-political reformer had a deep effect on modern India.


title: B. R. Ambedkar

text: Ambedkar was voted "the Greatest Indian" in 2012 by a poll organised by History TV18 and CNN IBN, ahead of Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru.


title: B. R. Ambedkar

text: Ambedkar Jayanti (Ambedkar's birthday) is an annual festival celebrated on 14 April, which is celebrated not only in India but all over the world. Ambedkar Jayanti is celebrated as an official public holiday throughout India. The United Nations celebrated Ambedkar Jayanti in 2016, 2017 and 2018.


title: Srinivasa Ramanujan

text: Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar (December 22, 1887 – April 26, 1920) was an Indian mathematician. His father's name was K. Srinivasa Iyengar and his mother's name was Komalatammal. On 1st October 1892 Ramanujan was enrolled at local school. He had no formal training in mathematics. However, he has made a large contribution to number theory, infinite series and [[continued fraction]


title: Srinivasa Ramanujan

text: In 2011, Ramanujan's birthday was made “National Mathematics Day” by Prime Minister [[Manmohan Singh]].


title: Mobile phone

text: A mobile phone (also known as a hand phone, cell phone, or cellular telephone) is a small portable radio telephone.


title: Mobile phone

text: The mobile phone can be used to communicate over long distances without wires. It works by communicating with a nearby base station (also called a "mobile tower") which connects it to the main phone network. When moving, if the mobile phone gets too far away from the cell it is connected to, that cell sends a message to another cell to tell the new cell to take over the call. This is called a "hand off," and the call continues with the new cell the phone is connected to. The hand-off is done so well and carefully that the user will usually never even know that the call was transferred to another cell.


title: Mobile phone

text: As mobile phones became more popular, they began to cost less money, and more people could afford them. Monthly plans became available for rates as low as US$30 or US$40 a month. Cell phones have become so cheap to own that they have mostly replaced pay phones and phone booths except for urban areas with many people.


title: Mobile phone

text: In the 21st century, a new type of mobile phone, called smartphones, have become popular. Since the 2010s, more people use smartphones than the old kind of mobile phone, which are called feature phones.


title: Mobile phone

text: Mobile phones in the 1950s through 1970s were large and heavy, and most were built into cars. In the late 20th century technology improved so people could carry their phones with ease.


title: Mobile phone

text: Although Dr. Martin Cooper from Motorola made the first call using a mobile phone in 1973 (using a handset weighing 2 kilograms), it did not use the type of cellular mobile phone network that we use today.


title: Mobile phone

text: The first cellular mobile phone networks were created in 1979 in Japan. Now almost all urban areas, and many country areas, are covered by mobile phone networks.


title: Mobile phone

text: A cell phone combines technologies, mainly telephone, radio, and computer. Most also have a digital camera inside.


title: Mobile phone

text: Cell phones work as two-way radios. They send electromagnetic microwaves from base station to base station. The waves are sent through antennas. This is called wireless communication.


title: Mobile phone

text: Early cell telephones used analog networks. They became rare late in the 20th century. Modern phones use digital networks.


title: Mobile phone

text: The first digital networks are also known as second generation, or 2G, technologies. The most used digital network is GSM (Global System for Mobile communication). It is used mainly in Europe and Asia, while CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) networks are mainly used in North America. The difference is in communication protocol. Other countries like Japan have different 2G protocols. A few 2G networks are still used. 3G are more common, and many places have 4G.


title: Mobile phone

text: The radio waves that the mobile phone networks use are split into different frequencies. The frequency is measured in Hz. Low frequencies can send the signal farther. Higher frequencies provide better connections and the voice communications are generally clearer. Four main frequencies are used around the world: 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz. Europe uses 900 and 1800 MHz and North America uses 850 and 1900 MHz.


title: Mobile phone

text: Today there are mobile phones that work on two, three or four frequencies. The most advanced phones work on all frequencies. They are called 'world' phones and can be used everywhere.


title: Mobile phone

text: There are different kinds of phones. A flip phone flips open, and is best for calling. A bar phone is shaped like a candy bar, and the keys and screen are on one face. A slate phone is a phone that has almost no buttons, and uses a touchscreen. Most smartphones are slates. A slider phone slides on rails. It can slide out number keys or a mini keyboard, but some do both. A swivel spins on an axle.


title: Mobile phone

text: When a mobile phone is switched on, its radio receiver finds a nearby mobile phone network base station, and its transmitter sends a request for service. Computers in the base station check if the phone is allowed to use the network. The base station covers an area called a cell. A phone can move between different cells, but will only communicate with one cell at a time. This is why mobile communications are sometimes called cellular communications.


title: Mobile phone

text: Once connected to a station, the mobile phone can make calls. Because the network knows that the phone is connected to that particular cell, it can also route calls to the mobile phone. Sometimes the radio connection to the cell is lost, for example when you go underground. This means the phone cannot make or receive calls until the connection is made again.


title: Mobile phone

text: The network is the company that provides the phone service. In most areas there will be more than one mobile network. Customers choose networks based on how well the different networks work in their area, or by price.


title: Mobile phone

text: Mobile phones use different technical standards. GSM phones need a separate microchip, called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM card, to work. The SIM has information like the phone number and payment account and this is needed to make or receive calls. The SIM may be supplied by the same company as the phone, or a different one. Sometimes you can change the network by using a SIM from another network, but some companies do not want this to happen and they lock the phone so that you have to use their SIM.


title: Mobile phone

text: The others have a special radio inside them that only makes phone calls when the phone is activated. When someone buys a contract, the network gives them a code, that if they enter it into the phone, the phone will then make calls. It is usually impossible to switch to a different network's code on this type of phone. The majority of these CDMA phones are used in the United States and nearby countries.


title: Mobile phone

text: A majority of new mobile phones from the 21st century are smartphones. These phones are basically small computers. Besides calling, they can be used for email, browsing the internet, showing local maps, playing music and games, and many other functions that computers can perform.


title: Mobile phone

text: Most smartphones run a common mobile operating system. This allows developers to make mobile apps that work on many different phones without needing to change the code. Examples of smartphones include Apple's iPhone (which uses iOS software) and Samsung's Galaxy series, one of many phones that use the Android platform made by Google.


title: Mobile phone

text: Cases, which are designed to attach to, support, or otherwise hold a smartphone, are popular accessories. Some have a keyboard built in. Case measures are based on the display inches (e.g. 5 inch display). There are different types:


title: Mobile phone

text: In the 21st century, a new type of mobile phone, called smartphones, have become popular. More people are using smartphones than the old kind of mobile phone, which are called feature phones covers


title: Mobile phone

text: Holsters are commonly used alone for devices that include rubberized padding, and/or are made of plastic and without exposed rigid corners. Heavy duty cases are designed to protect from drops and scratches.


title: United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or simply the United Kingdom (UK) is a sovereign country in Western Europe. It is a constitutional monarchy that is made up of four separate countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, NATO, the G8, and formerly the EU. It had the sixth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP in 2019.


title: United Kingdom

text: Around 66 million people live in the UK (2018). They can be divided into four big nationalities based on the countries where they live (or where they were born or their ancestry).


title: United Kingdom

text: About 95 percent of the UK's population are English speakers. 5.5 per cent of the population speak languages brought to the UK as a result of relatively recent immigration.


title: United Kingdom

text: The UK has many cities. London is the biggest city in the UK and is the nation's capital city. There are also other big cities in England including Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle upon Tyne. Scotland has the big cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Cardiff and Swansea are in Wales and Derry and Belfast is in Northern Ireland.


title: United Kingdom

text: Between the 17th and mid 20th-centuries, Britain was a world power. It became a colonial empire that controlled large areas of Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania. At its height in 1922, more than 458 million people lived in the British Empire, one-fifth of the Earth's population. Its area was 13,012,000 square miles: almost a quarter of the Earth's land area. The empire was sometimes called 'the empire on which the sun never sets', meaning it is always daytime someplace in the empire. Almost all countries left and became independent from the empire in the 20th century, although Britain keeps links with most countries of its former empire.


title: United Kingdom

text: The "UK" is a common abbreviation of "United Kingdom", which derives from when England's multiple Kingdoms had been United.


title: United Kingdom

text: Species of humans have lived in Britain for almost a million years. They did not live there all the time, probably because the climate was too extreme at times for people to live there.


title: United Kingdom

text: Archaeological remains show that the first group of modern people to live in the British Isles were hunter-gatherers after the last ice age ended. The date is not known: perhaps as early as 8000 but certainly by 5000. They built mesolithic wood and stone monuments. Stonehenge was built between 3000 and 1600. Celtic tribes arrived from mainland Europe. Britain was a changing collection of tribal areas, with no overall leader. Julius Caesar tried to invade (take over) the island in 55 but was not able to do so. The Romans successfully invaded in 43.


title: United Kingdom

text: Written history began in Britain when writing was brought to Britain by the Romans. Rome ruled in Britain from 44 to 410. They ruled the southern two-thirds of Great Britain. The Romans never took over Ireland and never fully controlled Scotland , the land north of the valleys of the River Forth and River Clyde. Their northern border varied from time to time and was marked sometimes at Hadrian's Wall (in modern England), sometimes at the Antonine Wall (in modern Scotland).


title: United Kingdom

text: After the Romans, waves of immigrants came to Britain. Some were German tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Others were Celts, like the Scoti, who came to Great Britain from Ireland. English and Scots are Germanic languages. They developed from Old English. This was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons in an area from the River Forth to the River Tamar.


title: United Kingdom

text: A later wave of immigration was that of the Vikings, during the Early Middle Ages' Viking Age. During the Viking invasion of Britain, they set up their own kingdom in north-western England, which the Anglo-Saxons named the "Danelaw", after the Danes who lived there and controlled the land. Vikings from Scandinavia also controlled most of the islands which are now part of Scotland, including the Outer Hebrides, the Inner Hebrides, and the Northern Isles (the Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands).After a long period when Anglo-Saxon England was split into various kingdoms, it was made into one kingdom by Æthelstan (Athelstan) in 945. In the 13th century, the lands of Wales were unified by force with England by the wars of Edward I of England ("Edward Longshanks").


title: United Kingdom

text: There were hundreds of years of fighting between both kingdoms of Great Britain. In 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I of England died, her closest relative was King James VI of Scotland. He became king of England and Ireland as well as the king of Scotland. The kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland had the same monarch ever since. James VI and I was the first to be named "King of Great Britain", and he ordered the design of the Union Jack. The Union Jack has been the British national flag ever since.


title: United Kingdom

text: In 1707, the Parliaments of England and Scotland agreed on the Treaty of Union, which joined the two countries into one country called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain" under Queen Anne with the Acts of Union 1707. This union merged Scotland and England into one kingdom. England and Scotland kept their own laws, with English law in England and Wales and Scots law in Scotland. The division between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England continued. Ireland and Great Britain continued to have the same king, but Ireland did not become part of the new kingdom in 1707.


title: United Kingdom

text: Scotland and England had already independently had much influence over Ireland since 1200. In 1800 laws were passed in the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland to merge the two kingdoms and their two parliaments. The country was then called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". The Union Jack was changed so that the flag of Saint Patrick (a red saltire) shows Ireland to be a part of the country.


title: United Kingdom

text: In 1922 much of Ireland became independent from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State (now called Ireland). However, six northern counties (called Northern Ireland) are part of the United Kingdom. The country was renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in 1927.


title: United Kingdom

text: The new Parliament of Northern Ireland set up in the 1920s stopped working in the 1970s, because of The Troubles. However, devolution started again with the Northern Ireland Assembly after the Belfast Agreement (the "Good Friday Agreement") in 1998. Devolution in Scotland and Wales started the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament the same year.


title: United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom was a member state of the European Union (EU) and an older organization, the European Economic Community (EEC), from 1973 until Brexit in 2020.


title: United Kingdom

text: The UK is northwest off the coast of mainland Europe. Around the UK are the North Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. The UK also rules, usually indirectly, a number of smaller places (mostly islands) around the world, which are known as British Overseas Territories. They were once part of the British Empire. Examples are Gibraltar (on the Iberian Peninsula next to the Strait of Gibraltar) and the Falkland Islands (in the south Atlantic Ocean).


title: United Kingdom

text: In the British Isles, the UK is made up of four different countries: Wales, England and Scotland and Northern Ireland. The capital city of Wales is Cardiff. The capital city of England is London. The capital city of Scotland is Edinburgh and the capital city of Northern Ireland is Belfast. Other large cities in the UK are Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Southampton, Leicester, Coventry, Bradford and Nottingham.


title: United Kingdom

text: The physical geography of the UK varies greatly. England consists of mostly lowland terrain, with upland or mountainous terrain only found north-west of the River Tees-River Exe line. The upland areas include the Lake District, the Pennines, the North York Moors, Exmoor, and Dartmoor. The lowland areas are typically traversed by ranges of low hills, frequently composed of chalk, and flat plains. Scotland is the most mountainous country in the UK and its physical geography is distinguished by the Highland Boundary Fault which goes across the Scottish mainland from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.


title: United Kingdom

text: The weather of the United Kingdom is changeable and unpredictable. Summers are moderately warm, winters are cool to cold. Rain falls throughout the year, and more on the west than the east because of its northerly latitude and the warm water from the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream. The usually moderate prevailing winds from the Atlantic may be interrupted by Arctic air from the northeast or hot air from the Sahara.


title: United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has met some Kyoto Protocol targets. It has signed the Paris Agreement. The British government want the UK to be carbon neutral by the year 2050.


title: United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy based on a constitutional monarchy. The people of the United Kingdom vote for a members of Parliament to speak for them and to make laws for them. King Charles III is the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is the head of state. The government, led by the Prime Minister, governs the country and appoints cabinet ministers. Today, the Prime Minister is Rishi Sunak, who is the leader of the centre-right Conservative Party.


title: United Kingdom

text: Parliament is where laws are made. It has three parts: the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the King. The House of Commons is the most powerful part. It is where Members of Parliament sit. The Prime Minister sits here as well because they are a Member of Parliament.


title: United Kingdom

text: Scotland has its own devolved Parliament with the power to make laws on things like education, health and Scottish law. Northern Ireland and Wales have their own devolved legislatures which have some powers but less than the Scottish parliament. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign and it could end the devolved administrations at any time. The UK is a unitary state and not a federation of states.


title: United Kingdom

text: The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the legislature, the political assembly that makes laws and decides tax. The British people are represented by members of parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. MPs are chosen in elections. The MPs in the House of Commons decide who will be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The prime minister decides who will be in the British Government (Her Majesty's Government). The government is not controlled by the king or queen, but by Parliament. In Britain, Parliament is made up of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.


title: United Kingdom

text: Unlike the House of Commons, the people in the House of Lords are not elected. The people who sit in the House of Lords are called peers. Most peers are appointed by the government. There are some who are hereditary peers (who inherit their peerages from ancestors or other family members). Certain bishops in the established Church of England also attend the House of Lords. (The Church of England is the national church in England. The Church of Scotland does not have bishops, and neither Wales nor Northern Ireland has an established national church.) Together, the two houses make a bicameral legislature, in which the House of Commons has more power. In the past, the House of Lords had more power. Before the 20th century, the prime minister was often a member of the House of Lords. As the House of Lords lost its powers, as political reforms tried to improve democracy, the House of Commons became more powerful and the prime minister started always to be a member of the House of Commons.


title: United Kingdom

text: After the English Civil War during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the monarchy ended for a time. The British Isles were a republic, which Cromwell named the "Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland". Although the monarchy was restored after his death, the Crown slowly became the secondary power, and Parliament the first. Until the early twentieth century, only men who owned property could vote to choose MPs. In the nineteenth century, more people were given suffrage. In 1928, all men and women got the vote: this is called universal suffrage.


title: United Kingdom

text: Almost all members of Parliament belong to political parties. The biggest parties are the Conservative Party, Labour Party, the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats. Members of the same party agree to work together. A party with more than half the seats (a majority) forms the government. The leader of the party becomes the prime minister, who then chooses the other ministers. Because the government has a majority in Parliament, it can normally control what laws are passed.


title: United Kingdom

text: The British parliament is in Westminster, in London, but it has power over the whole of the United Kingdom. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own parliaments as well, and these have more limited powers. (England does not have a separate parliament.) Scotland has the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh. Wales has the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff. Northern Ireland has the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in Belfast. There are also parliaments in the Isle of Man and in Jersey and Guernsey (the Channel Islands), which are all island states for which the UK has some responsibility in international law. Man, Jersey, and Guernsey are "crown dependencies". Some British Overseas Territories have their own legislatures.


title: United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, alongside such countries such as the USA and France, and operates a large navy (Royal Navy), a sizable army, (British Army) and an air force (Royal Air Force).


title: United Kingdom

text: From the 18th century to the early 20th century, the United Kingdom was one of the most powerful nations in the world, with a large and powerful navy (due to the fact it was surrounded by sea, so a large navy was the most practical option). This status has faded in recent times, but it remains a member of various military groups such as the UN Security Council and NATO. It is also still seen as a great military power.


title: United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom is a developed country with the sixth-largest economy in the world. It was a superpower during the 18th, 19th and early 20th century and was considered since the early 1800s to be the most powerful and influential nation in the world, in politics, economics (For it was the wealthiest country at the time.) and in military strength.


title: United Kingdom

text: Britain continued to be the biggest manufacturing economy in the world until 1908 and the largest economy until the 1920s. The economic cost of two world wars and the decline of the British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s reduced its leading role in global affairs. The United Kingdom has strong economic, cultural, military and political influence and is a nuclear power. The United Kingdom holds a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and is a member of the G8, NATO, World Trade Organization and the Commonwealth of Nations. The City of London, in the capital, is famous for being the largest centre of finance in the world.


title: United Kingdom

text: William Shakespeare was an English playwright. He wrote plays in the late 16th century. Some of his plays were "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth". In the 19th century, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were novelists. Twentieth-century writers include the science-fiction novelist H. G. Wells and J. R. R. Tolkien. The children's fantasy "Harry Potter" series was written by J. K. Rowling. Aldous Huxley was also from the United Kingdom.


title: United Kingdom

text: English language literature is written by authors from many countries. Eight people from the United Kingdom have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Seamus Heaney is a writer who was born in Northern Ireland.


title: United Kingdom

text: Arthur Conan Doyle from Scotland wrote the Sherlock Holmes detective novels. He was from Edinburgh. The poet Dylan Thomas brought Welsh culture to international attention.


title: United Kingdom

text: The nature of education is a devolved matter in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They, and England, have separate, but similar, systems of education. They all have laws that a broad education is required from ages five to eighteen, except for in Scotland where school departure is allowed from the age of sixteen. Pupils attend state funded schools (academy schools, faith schools, grammar schools, city technology colleges, studio schools) and other children attend independent schools (known as public schools).


title: United Kingdom

text: There have been universities in Britain since the Middle Ages. The "ancient universities" started at this time and in the Renaissance. They are: the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Aberdeen, and the University of Edinburgh. These are the oldest universities in the English-speaking world.


title: United Kingdom

text: The University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and London universities (University College London, the London School of Economics, King's College London and Imperial College London) collectively form the Golden Triangle of universities in the south-east of England. A broader group of twenty universities from the Russell Group of research universities.


title: United Kingdom

text: The BBC is an organisation in the United Kingdom. It broadcasts in the United Kingdom and other countries on television, radio and the Internet. The BBC also sells its programs to other broadcasting companies around the world. The organisation is run by a group of twelve governors who have been given the job by the Queen, on the advice of government ministers.


title: United Kingdom

text: Road traffic in the United Kingdom drives on the left-hand side of the road (unlike the Americas and most of Europe), and the driver steers from the right-hand side of the vehicle. The road network on the island of Great Britain is extensive, with most local and rural roads having evolved from Roman and Medieval times. Major routes developed in the mid 20th Century were made to the needs of the motor car. The multi-lane high speed motorway (freeway) network was mostly built in the 1960s and 1970s. It links major towns and cities.


title: United Kingdom

text: The system of rail transport was invented in England and Wales, so the United Kingdom has the oldest railway network in the world. It was built mostly during the Victorian era. At the heart of the network are five long-distance main lines which radiate from London to the major cities and secondary population centres with dense commuter networks in the regions. The newest part of the network connects London to the Channel Tunnel from St Pancras station.


title: United Kingdom

text: The British Rail network is partly privatized, with privately-owned train operating companies providing service along particular lines or regions. The tracks, signals, and stations are owned by a Government controlled company called Network Rail. In Northern Ireland, the NI Railways is the national railway. The system of underground railways in London, known as the Tube, has been copied by many other cities.


title: United Kingdom

text: Most domestic air travel in the United Kingdom is between London and the major cities in Scotland and the North of England and Belfast. London-Heathrow is the nation’s largest airport and is one of the most important international hubs in the world. Other major airports with principal international service include London-Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. An extensive system of ferry networks operates. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands also have domestic passenger and freight routs.


title: United Kingdom

text: Major languages spoken in the United Kingdom other than English include Polish (500,000 approximate number of speakers in the United Kingdom), Eastern Panjabi or Punjabi (471,000), Bengali (400,000), Urdu (400,000), Cantonese (300,000), Greek (200,000), Southwestern Caribbean Creole English (170,000).


title: Vishnu

text: Vishnu is the supreme godhead of Vaishnavism (Para Brahman or Nirguna Brahman) in puranas. He is called "Swambhagwan" in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Vishnu is one of the three main gods in Hinduism and is the supreme being in the Vaishnava tradition. Vishnu is a member of the Trimurti in Hinduism.


title: Vishnu

text: Vishnu is the god of preservation, meaning that he protects the universe from being destroyed. It is believed that Vishnu holds the Earth and all living organisms. According to the Hindu religion, he has set foot and arrived on the Earth in nine forms called avatars, so far with one incarnation yet to come that is Kalki at the last to be Kali Yuga, to destroy evil. His most famous incarnations are Rama, Krishna, Parashurama, and Narasimha.


title: Vishnu

text: Vishnu's wife is Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and fortune. Vishnu is usually shown with light blue skin and four arms. Vishnu holds a lotus, or "Padma," the indestructible mace of Vishnu (Kaumodaki), a conch (Shankha), and the unstoppable disc of Vishnu (Sudarshana Chakra) in each of his four hands. He is known to take many disguises, but the three main forms of Vishnu are Mahavishnu Karanodakshayi Vishnu (Mahavishnu), Garbhodaksayi Vishnu, and Kshirodakashayi Vishnu. The other two are the expansions of Karanodakshayi Vishnu.


title: Vishnu

text: Vishnu holds items in his four hands. He holds a conch in the upper left hand, which represents "victory". He holds the Sudarshan Chakra in the upper right hand, which represents "spiritual energy". In his lower left hand, a lotus (flower) represents "peacefulness", and in his lower right hand, the Kaumodaki represents "Vishnu"'s "powers".


title: Vishnu

text: The Kodlamane Shree Vishnumurthy Temple is dedicated to Vishnu and is the ancient Tirth Kshetra. There is no other place like this anywhere in Brahamanda.


title: Vishnu

text: Vishnu has omniverse manipulation, absolute manipulation, meta manipulation, and preservation. As the preserver, Vishnu can control anything and everything. The power to protect everything from anything is the reason he is also called the supreme protector of his devotees.


title: Vishnu

text: Absolute destruction: In the Vishnu purana, Vishnu is also described as the creator, destroyer, and preserver. As the destroyer, he can even destroy infinity or the omniverse.


title: Vishnu

text: Omniverse creation or absolute creation: As the creator in the Vishnu Purana, Vishnu has the power to create everything, even infinity and beyond. The power to have limitless power upon seeing the Supreme form of Vishnu. Arjuna describes him as having infinite prowess or power.


title: Vishnu

text: Omnipotence : Vishnu has the power to do absolutely everything, even creating something that is bigger than infinity itself. In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna/Vishnu shows Arjuna everything—all creation: time, space, past, present, future, the omniverse, fictional and real human beings, and more. It is beyond human imagination to actually comprehend it.


title: Vishnu

text: Omnipresent: The power to be everywhere at every time including beyond the omniverse in both past present and future. When Krishna/Vishnu shows his Supreme appearance, it is described being everywhere, yet people can't see it because they don't have the divine vision. Only Maharishis/sages, gods, Sanjaya, and Arjuna are able to see this Vishvarupa.


title: Vishnu

text: Formless: Vishnu's true form is described as formless, infinite, boundless, inapplicable, without shape and color, according to Vishnu Purana.


title: Vishnu

text: Absolute immortality: Chapter 1 of Vishnu purana describes Vishnu being boundlessly above the concept of death idea and life.


title: Vishnu

text: Absolute Transcendence/Being Above All Things: The Vishnu Purana also describes Vishnu being above all descriptions such as logic, time, space, etc. He is an infinite dimensional being according to Vishnu Sahasranamam.


title: Australia

text: Australia, formally the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country and sovereign state in the southern hemisphere, located in Oceania. Its capital city is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney.


title: Australia

text: Australia is the sixth biggest country in the world by land area, and is part of the Oceanic and Australasian regions. Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and other islands on the Australian tectonic plate are together called Australasia, which is one of the world's great ecozones. When other Pacific islands are included with Australasia, it is called Oceania.


title: Australia

text: 25 million people live in Australia, and about 85% of them live near the east coast. The country is divided up into six states and two territories, and more than half of Australia's population lives in and around the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The first people to live in the country were the Indigenous Australians: many of them died from smallpox during colonisation.


title: Australia

text: Australia is known for its mining (coal, iron, gold, diamonds and crystals), its production of wool, and as the world's largest producer of bauxite. Its emblem is a flower called the golden wattle.


title: Australia

text: Australia is also known for its animals and rich wildlife. The national symbols of Australia are the kangaroo and the golden wattle. Scientifically, perhaps even more important are its two monotreme mammals: the platypus and the echidna.


title: Australia

text: Australia's landmass of is on the Indo-Australian plate. The continent of Australia, including the island of Tasmania, was separated from the other continents of the world many millions of years ago. Because of this, many animals and plants live in Australia that do not live anywhere else. These include animals like the kangaroo, the koala, the emu, the kookaburra, and the platypus.


title: Australia

text: People first arrived in Australia more than 50,000 years ago. These native Australians are called the Australian Aboriginals. For the history of Australia, see History of Australia.


title: Australia

text: Most of the Australian colonies, having been settled from Britain, became mostly independent democratic states in the 1850s and all six combined as a federation on 1 January 1901. The first Prime Minister of Australia was Edmund Barton in 1901. Australia is a member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with King Charles III as King of Australia and Head of State and a Governor-General who is chosen by the Prime Minister to carry out all the duties of the King in Australia.


title: Australia

text: Australia has six states, two major mainland territories, and other minor territories. The states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).


title: Australia

text: In 2013 according to world bank Australia had just over 23.13 million people. Most Australians live in cities along the coast, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle and the Gold Coast. The largest inland city is Canberra, which is also the nation's capital. The largest city is Sydney.


title: Australia

text: Australia is a very big country, but much of the land is very dry, and the middle of the continent is mostly desert. Only the areas around the east, west and south coast have enough rain and a suitable climate (not too hot and dry) for farms and cities.


title: Australia

text: All the capital cities except Perth and Darwin are in the south-east of the country. There is now increasing rainfall and flooding which affects this region, which is ominous [threatening]. It is thought this is caused by climate change, and may continue to get worse. The BBC report comments: "In the past three years, record-breaking bushfire and flood events have killed more than 500 people and billions of animals. Drought, cyclones and freak tides have gripped communities". The BBC report continues: "Nowhere is this a bigger issue than in Queensland. It is home to almost 40% of the 500,000 homes projected to be effectively uninsurable". This means people can't get insurance because the risk of flooding (in one season) or fire (in another season) is too great.


title: Australia

text: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people arrived in Australia about 60,000 years ago or maybe even earlier. Until the arrival of British settlers in 1788, the Aboriginal people lived by hunting and gathering food from the land. They lived in all sorts of climates and managed the land in different ways. An example of Aboriginal land management was the Cumberland Plain where Sydney is now. Every few years the Aboriginal people would burn the grass and small trees. This meant that a lot of grass grew back, but not many big trees. Kangaroos like to live on grassy plains, but not in forests. The kangaroos that lived on the plain were a good food supply for the Aboriginal people. Sometimes, Aboriginals would name a person after an animal, and they could not eat that animal to help level out the food population.


title: Australia

text: Aboriginal people did not usually build houses, except huts of grass, leaves and bark. They did not usually build walls or fences, and there were no horses, cows or sheep in Australia that needed to be kept in pens. The only Aboriginal buildings that are known are fish-traps made from stones piled up in the river, and the remains of a few stone huts in Victoria and Tasmania. The Aboriginal people did not use metal or make pottery or use bows and arrows or weave cloth. In some parts of Australia the people used sharp flaked-stone spearheads, but most Aboriginal spears were made of sharply pointed wood. Australia has a lot of trees that have very hard wood that was good for spear making. The boomerang was used in some areas for sport and for hunting.


title: Australia

text: The Aboriginal people did not think that the land belonged to them. They believed that they had grown from the land, so it was like their mother, and they belonged to the land.


title: Australia

text: In the 1600s, Dutch merchants traded with the islands of Batavia (now Indonesia), to the north of Australia and several different Dutch ships touched on the coast of Australia. The Dutch governor, van Diemen, sent Abel Tasman on a voyage of discovery and he found Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land. Its name was later changed to honour the man who discovered it.


title: Australia

text: The British Government was sure that there must be a very large land in the south, that had not been explored. They sent Captain James Cook to the Pacific Ocean. His ship, "HMS Endeavour", carried the famous scientists, Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander who were going to Tahiti where they would watch the planet Venus pass in front of the Sun. Captain Cook's secret mission was to find "Terra Australis" (the Land of the South).


title: Australia

text: The voyage of discovery was very successful, because they found New Zealand and sailed right around it. Then they sailed westward. At last, a boy, William Hicks, who was up the mast spotted land on the horizon. Captain Cook named that bit of land Point Hicks. They sailed up the coast and Captain Cook named the land that he saw "New South Wales". At last they sailed into a large open bay which was full of fish and stingrays which the sailors speared for food. Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore and were astonished to find that they did not know what any of the plants or birds or animals that they saw were. They collected hundreds of plants to take back to England.


title: Australia

text: Captain Cook saw the Aboriginal people with their simple way of life. He saw them fishing and hunting and collecting grass seeds and fruit. But there were no houses and no fences. In most parts of the world, people put up a house and a fence or some marker to show that they own the land. But the Aboriginal people did not own the land in that way. They belonged to the land, like a baby belongs to its mother. Captain Cook went home to England and told the government that no-one owned the land. This would later cause a terrible problem for the Aboriginal people.


title: Australia

text: In the 1700s, in England, laws were tough, many people were poor and gaols (jails) were full. A person could be sentenced to death for stealing a loaf of bread. Many people were hanged for small crimes. But usually they were just thrown in gaol. Often they were sent away to the British colonies in America. But by the 1770s, the colonies in America became the United States. They were free from British rule and would not take England's convicts any more, so England needed to find a new and less populated place.


title: Australia

text: By the 1780s the gaols of England were so full that convicts were often chained up in rotting old ships. The government decided to make a settlement in New South Wales and send some of the convicts there. In 1788 the First Fleet of eleven ships set sail from Portsmouth carrying convicts, sailors, marines, a few free settlers and enough food to last for two years. Their leader was Captain Arthur Phillip. They were to make a new colony at the place that Captain Cook had discovered, named Botany Bay because of all the unknown plants found there by the two scientists.


title: Australia

text: Captain Phillip found that Botany Bay was flat and windy. There was not much fresh water. He went with two ships up the coast and sailed into a great harbour called Port Jackson, which he said was "the finest harbour in the world". There were many small bays on the harbour so he decided on one which had a good stream of fresh water and some flat shore to land on. On 26 January 1788, the flag was raised and New South Wales was claimed in the name of King George III of England, and the new settlement was called Sydney.


title: Australia

text: For the first few years of the settlement, things were very difficult. No-one in the British Government had thought very hard about what sort of convicts should be sent to make a new colony. Nobody had chosen them carefully. There was only one man who was a farmer. There was no-one among the convicts who was a builder, a brick-maker or a blacksmith. No-one knew how to fix the tools when they broke. All of the cattle escaped. There were no cooking pots. All the plants were different so no-one knew which ones could be eaten. It was probable that everyone in the new colony would die of starvation.