title: Australia

text: The little group of tents had a hut for the Governor, Arthur Phillip, and another hut for the supply of food. Soon it grew into a small town with streets, a bridge over the stream, a windmill for grinding grain and wharves for ships. By the 1820s there was a fine brick house for the Governor. There was also a hospital and a convict barracks and a beautiful church which are still standing today. Settlements had spread out from Sydney, firstly to Norfolk Island and to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and also up the coast to Newcastle, where coal was discovered, and inland where the missing cattle were found to have grown to a large herd. Spanish Merino sheep had been brought to Sydney, and by 1820, farmers were raising fat lambs for meat and also sending fine wool back to the factories of England.


title: Australia

text: While the settlement was growing in New South Wales, it was also growing in Tasmania. The climate in Tasmania was more like that in England, and farmers found it easy to grow crops there.


title: Australia

text: Because Australia is such a very large land, it was easy to think that it might be able to hold a large number of people. In the early days of the colony, a great number of explorers went out, searching for good land to settle on.


title: Australia

text: When the settlers looked west from Sydney, they saw a range of mountains which they called the Blue Mountains. They were not very high and did not look very rugged but for many years no-one could find their way through them. In 1813 Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and a 17-year-old called William Charles Wentworth crossed the Blue Mountains and found land on the other side which was good for farming. A road was built and the governor, Lachlan Macquarie founded the town of Bathurst on the other side, 160 km (100 miles) from Sydney. Bathurst became Australia's first inland settlement.


title: Australia

text: Some people, like Captain Charles Sturt were sure that there must be a sea in the middle of Australia and set out to find it. Many of the explorers did not prepare very well, or else they went out to explore at the hottest time of year. Some died like Burke and Wills. Ludwig Leichhardt got lost twice. The second time, he was never seen again. Major Thomas Mitchell was one of the most successful explorers. He mapped the country as he went, and his maps remained in use for more than 100 years. He travelled all the way to what is now western Victoria, and to his surprise and annoyance found that he was not the first white person there. The Henty brothers had come from Tasmania, had built themselves a house, had a successful farm and fed the Major and his men on roast lamb and wine.


title: Australia

text: The gold rushes of New South Wales and Victoria started in 1851 leading to large numbers of people arriving to search for gold. The population grew across south east Australia and made great wealth and industry. By 1853 the gold rushes had made some poor people very rich.


title: Australia

text: The transportation of convicts to Australia ended in the 1840s and 1850s and more changes came. The people in Australia wanted to run their own country, and not be told what to do from London. The first governments in the colonies were run by governors chosen by London. Soon the settlers wanted local government and more democracy. William Wentworth started the Australian Patriotic Association (Australia's first political party) in 1835 to demand democratic government. In 1840, the city councils started and some people could vote. New South Wales Legislative Council had its first elections in 1843, again with some limits on who could vote. In 1855, limited self-government was given by London to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. In 1855, the right to vote was given to all men over 21 in South Australia. The other colonies soon followed. Women were given the vote in the Parliament of South Australia in 1895 and they became the first women in the world allowed to stand in elections.


title: Australia

text: Australians had started parliamentary democracies all across the continent. But voices were getting louder for all of them to come together as one country with a national parliament.


title: Australia

text: Until 1901, Australia was not a nation, it was six separate colonies governed by Britain. They voted to join to form one new country, called the Commonwealth of Australia, in 1901. Australia was still part of the British Empire, and at first wanted only British or Europeans to come to Australia. But soon it had its own money, its own Army and its own Navy.


title: Australia

text: In Australia at this time, the trade unions were very strong, and they started a political party, the Australian Labor Party. Australia passed many laws to help the workers.


title: Australia

text: In 1914, the First World War started in Europe. Australia joined in on the side of Britain against Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Australian soldiers were sent to Gallipoli, in the Ottoman Empire. They fought bravely, but were beaten by the Turks. Today Australia remembers this battle every year on ANZAC Day. They also fought on the Western Front. More than 60,000 Australians and New Zealanders were killed.


title: Australia

text: Australia had a really hard time in the Great Depression of the 1930s and joined Britain in a war against Nazi Germany when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. But in 1941 lots of Australian soldiers were captured in the Fall of Singapore by Japan. Then Japan started attacking Australia and people worried about invasion. But with help from the United States Navy, the Japanese were stopped. After the war, Australia became a close friend of the United States and Japan.


title: Australia

text: When the war ended, Australia felt that it needed many more people to fill the country up and to work. So the government said it would take in people from Europe who had lost their homes in the war. It did things like building the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Over the next 25 years, millions of people came to Australia. They came especially from Italy and Greece, other countries in Europe. Later they also came from countries like Turkey and Lebanon. An important new party, the Liberal Party of Australia was made by Robert Menzies in 1944 and it won lots of elections from 1949 until in 1972, then Gough Whitlam won for the Labor Party. Whitlam made changes, but he made the Senate unhappy and the Governor-General sacked him and forced an election in 1975. Then Malcolm Fraser won a few elections for the Liberal Party.


title: Australia

text: In the 1960s many people began coming to Australia from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries in Asia. Australia became more multicultural. In the 1950s and 1960s Australia became one of the richest countries in the world, helped by mining and wool. Australia started trading more with America, than Japan. Australia supported the United States in wars against dictatorships in Korea and Vietnam and later Iraq. Australian soldiers also helped the United Nations in countries like East Timor in 1999.


title: Australia

text: In 1973, the famous Sydney Opera House opened. In the 1970s, 80s and 90s lots of Australian movies, actors and singers became famous around the world. In the year 2000, Sydney had the Summer Olympics.


title: Australia

text: In the 1980s and 90s, the Labor Party under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, then the Liberal Party under John Howard made lots of changes to the economy. Australia had a bad recession in 1991, but when other Western countries had trouble with their economies in 2008, Australia stayed strong.


title: Australia

text: Today Australia is a rich, peaceful and democratic country. But it still has problems. Around 4-5% of Australians could not get a job in 2010. A lot of land in Australia (like Uluru) has been returned to Aboriginal people, but lots of Aboriginals are still poorer than everybody else. Every year the government chooses a big number of new people from all around the world to come as immigrants to live in Australia. These people may come because they want to do business, or to live in a democracy, to join their family, or because they are refugees. Australia took 6.5 million immigrants in the 60 years after World War Two, including around 660,000 refugees.


title: Australia

text: Julia Gillard became the first woman Prime Minister of Australia in 2010 when she replaced her Labor Party colleague Kevin Rudd (who later replaced her).


title: Australia

text: Australia is part of the Commonwealth of Nations. Australia is made up of six states, and two mainland territories. Each state and territory has its own Parliament and makes its own local laws. The Parliament of Australia sits in Canberra and makes laws for the whole country, also known as the Commonwealth or Federation.


title: Australia

text: The Federal government is led by the Prime Minister of Australia, who is the member of Parliament chosen as leader. The current Prime Minister is Anthony Albanese.


title: Australia

text: The leader of Australia is the Prime Minister, although the Governor-General represents the Queen of Australia, who is also the Queen of Great Britain, as head of state. The Governor-General, currently His Excellency David Hurley, is chosen by the Prime Minister.


title: Australia

text: Australia was colonised by people from Britain, but today people from all over the world live there. English is the main spoken language. Christianity is the main religion, though all religions are accepted and not everybody has a religion. Australia is multicultural: all its people are encouraged to keep their different languages, religions and ways of life, while also learning English and joining in with other Australians. Australia has many immigrants from different countries around the world.


title: Australia

text: Famous Australian writers include the bush balladeers Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson who wrote about life in the Australian bush. More modern famous writers include Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and Colleen McCullough. In 1973, Patrick White won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Australian to have achieved this; he is seen as one of the great English-language writers of the twentieth century.


title: Australia

text: Australian music has had world-wide stars, for example the opera singers Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland, the rock and roll bands Bee Gees, AC/DC and INXS, the folk-rocker Paul Kelly (musician), the pop singer Kylie Minogue and Australian country music stars Slim Dusty and John Williamson. Australian Aboriginal music is very special and very ancient: it has the famous didgeridoo woodwind instrument.


title: Australia

text: Australian TV has produced many successful programs for home and overseas. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Home and Away and Neighbours are examples. It has had well known TV stars, such as Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna Everage"), Steve Irwin ("The Crocodile Hunter") and The Wiggles. Major Australian subgroups such as the Bogan have been shown on Australian TV in shows such as Bogan Hunters and Kath & Kim.


title: Australia

text: Australia has two public broadcasters (the ABC and the multicultural SBS), three commercial television networks, three pay-TV services, and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has its daily newspapers, and there are two national daily newspapers, "The Australian" and "The Australian Financial Review".


title: Australia

text: Australian movies have a long history. The world's first feature movie was the Australian movie "The Story of the Kelly Gang" of 1906. In 1933, "In the Wake of the Bounty", directed by Charles Chauvel, had Errol Flynn as the main actor. Flynn went on to a celebrated career in Hollywood. The first Australian Oscar was won by the 1942 "Kokoda Front Line!", directed by Ken G. Hall. In the 1970s and 1980s Australian movies and movie stars became world famous. There were movies like "Picnic at Hanging Rock", "Gallipoli" (with Mel Gibson), "The Man From Snowy River" and "Crocodile Dundee". Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger became global stars during the 1990s and "Australia" starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman made a lot of money in 2008.


title: Australia

text: Australia is a popular destination for business conferences and research, with Sydney one of the top 20 meeting destinations in the world.


title: Australia

text: Sport is an important part of Australian culture because the climate is good for outdoor activities. 23.5% Australians over the age of 15 regularly take part in organised sporting activities. The most popular sports are Australian rules football, rugby league and cricket. In international sports, Australia has very strong teams in cricket, hockey, netball, rugby league and rugby union, and performs well in cycling, rowing and swimming. Local popular sports include Australian Rules Football, horse racing, soccer and motor racing. Australia has participated in every summer Olympic Games since 1896, and every Commonwealth Games. Australia has hosted the 1956 and 2000 Summer Olympics, and has ranked in the top five medal-winners since 2000. Australia has also hosted the 1938, 1962, 1982 and 2006 Commonwealth Games and are to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Other major international events held regularly in Australia include the Australian Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, annual international cricket matches and the Formula One Australian Grand Prix. Corporate and government sponsorship of many sports and elite athletes is common in Australia. Televised sport is popular; some of the highest-rated television programs include the Summer Olympic Games and the grand finals of local and international football competitions.


title: Australia

text: The main sporting leagues for men are the AFL (Australian rules football), the NRL (rugby league), the A-League (soccer) and the NBL (basketball). For women, they are the AFLW (Australian rules football), ANZ Netball Championships (netball), the W-League (soccer) and WNBL (basketball).


title: Australia

text: Famous Australian sports players include the cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, the swimmer Ian Thorpe, the cricketer Shane Warne and the athlete Cathy Freeman.


title: Australia

text: Just 60 years ago, Australia had only one big art festival. Now Australia has hundreds of smaller community-based festivals, and national and regional festivals that focus on specific art forms.


title: Australia

text: Australia is home to many animals and plants that can be found nowhere else on Earth, except perhaps New Guinea.


title: Australia

text: The platypus and the short-beaked echidna are unique, and are two of the only five surviving monotremes. Monotremes are only found in Australia and New Guinea.


title: Australia

text: Koalas, kangaroos, wombats, numbats and many others others, are marsupials. Most of the marsupials in the world are found only on the continent or on the neighbouring island of New Guinea. Wildfires from global warming in 2020 have reduced their population.


title: Australia

text: The gum trees are almost as remarkable as the animals. They are mainly Eucalypts and other gum trees. These are woody evergeens which make essential oils and are prone to fire. Sticky heavily scented gum squeezes out of their wood. The tribe has about 860 species. They are all native to Southeast Asia and Oceania. Most live in Australia. Until British settlement in Australia, these trees were almost entirely unknown. They had been separated from the Americas, Africa and much of Asia for millions of years.


title: Greek numerals

text: Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names "Milesian numerals", "Alexandrian numerals", or "alphabetic numerals". In modern Greece, they are still in use for ordinal numbers, and in much of the same way that Roman numerals are in the West; for ordinary (cardinal) numbers, Arabic numerals are used.


title: Greek numerals

text: At first, before it was used more, the Greek alphabet, Linear A and Linear B had used a different system with symbols for 1, 10, 100, 1000 and 10000 operating with the following formula: | = 1, – = 10, ◦ = 100, ¤ = 1000, ☼ = 10000.


title: Greek numerals

text: The earliest alphabet-related system of numerals used with the Greek letters was a set of the acrophonic Attic numerals, operating much like Roman numerals (which derived from this scheme), with the following formula: Ι = 1, Γ = 5, Δ = 10, ΓΔ = 50, Η = 100, ΓΗ = 500, Χ = 1000, ΓΧ = 5000, Μ = 10000 and ΓΜ = 50000.


title: Greek numerals

text: The acrophonic system was replaced by a new alphabetic system, sometimes called the Ionic numeral system, from the 4th century BC. Each unit (1, 2, …, 9) was assigned a separate letter, each tens (10, 20, …, 90) a separate letter, and each hundreds (100, 200, …, 900) a separate letter. This requires 27 letters, so the 24-letter Greek alphabet was extended by using three obsolete letters: fau ϝ, (also used are [Sigma (letter)|sigma] ϛ or, in modern Greek, ΣΤ) for 6, koppa ϟ for 90, and sampi ϡ for 900. To distinguish numerals from letters they are followed by the "keraia" (Greek "—insect antenna"), a symbol similar to an acute sign (Unicode U+0374).


title: Greek numerals

text: Fau (also spelled vau, pronounced wow) may also be called digamma. The two are the same in meaning, and either symbol may be used to represent the number 6.


title: Greek numerals

text: This alphabetic system operates on the additive principle in which the numeric values of the letters are added together to form the total. For example, 241 is represented as ΣΜΑʹ (200 + 40 + 1).


title: Greek numerals

text: To represent numbers from 1,000 to 999,999 the same letters are reused to serve as thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands. A "left keraia" (Unicode U+0375, ‘Greek Lower Numeral Sign’) is put in front of thousands to distinguish.


title: France

text: France ( or ; ), officially the French Republic (, ), is a country in Western Europe. It also includes various departments and territories of France overseas.


title: France

text: Mainland France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is sometimes referred to as "L’Hexagone" ("The Hexagon") because of the shape of its territory.


title: France

text: France is a unitary semi-presidential republic. The head of state is the President, who is also a politician. The Prime Minister is secondary to the President. This slightly strange system was chosen by General Charles de Gaul in 1970. The main ideals are expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.


title: France

text: Metropolitan France is bordered (clockwise from the North) by Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. The overseas departments and collectives of France share land borders with Brazil and Suriname (bordering French Guiana), and the Netherlands Antilles (bordering Saint Martin). France is linked to the United Kingdom by the Channel Tunnel, which passes under the English Channel.


title: France

text: France is the largest country in the European Union and the second largest in Europe. It has been one of the world's most powerful countries for many centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonized much of North America. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built one of the largest colonial empires of the time. This included large parts of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Pacific Islands. France is a developed country and has a large economy.


title: France

text: France was one of the first members of the European Union, and has the largest land area of all members. It is also a founding member of the United Nations, and a member of the Francophonie, the G8, NATO, and the Latin Union. It is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. France has the largest number of nuclear weapons with active warheads, and the largest number of nuclear power plants, in the European Union.


title: France

text: France's official language is French, which is also official in 29 other countries. Some other French speaking countries include the Congo, Quebec, and Mauritius.


title: France

text: An interesting fact is that the French King Louis XIX only enjoyed 20 minutes of royal fame after his father Charles X abdicated, leaving him to ascend the French throne in July 1830.


title: France

text: France is in Western Europe. France shares its borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. France has two mountain ranges near its borders: the Alps in the east and the Pyrenees in the south. The climate of southern France is similar to Greece which both have Mediterranean climate. There are many rivers in France, including the Seine and the Loire. In the north and the west of France, there are low hills and river valleys.


title: France

text: In France there are many different climates. The Atlantic has a major effect on the weather in the north and west. This means the temperature is about the same most of the year. It is in the marine west coast climate region. In the east, winters are cold and the weather is good. Summers are hot and stormy. In the south, winters are cool and wet. Summers are hot and dry. The north has a temperate climate similar to that of the United Kingdom and other Northern European countries.


title: France

text: France has the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world. It covers 11,035,000 km (4,260,637 sq mi). Only the United States has a larger one .


title: France

text: The borders of modern France are about the same as those of ancient Gaul. Celtic Gauls inhabited Ancient Gaul. Julius Caesar conquered Gaul for Rome in the 1st century BC. Eventually, the Gauls adopted Roman speech (Latin, from which the French language evolved) and Roman culture. Christianity first appeared in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. It became firmly established by the fourth and fifth centuries.


title: France

text: In the 4th century AD, the Germanic tribes, principally the Franks invaded the Gauls. This is how the name "Francie" appeared. The modern name "France" comes from the name of the Capetian Kings of France around Paris. The Franks were the first tribe of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity rather than Arianism. The French called themselves "the most Christian Kingdom of France".


title: France

text: The Treaty of Verdun (843), divided Charlemagne's Empire into three parts. The biggest area was Western Francia. It is similar to modern France.


title: France

text: The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet became King of France. His descendants, the Direct Capetians, the House of Valois and the House of Bourbon, unified the country with many wars and dynastic inheritance.


title: France

text: The monarchy was the most powerful during the 17th century and the reign of Louis XIV of France. At that time, France had the largest population in Europe. The country had a big influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became the common language of diplomacy in international affairs. Much of the Enlightenment happened in France. French scientists made big scientific discoveries in the 18th century. France also conquered many overseas possessions in the Americas and Asia.


title: France

text: France had a monarchy until the French Revolution in 1789. King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed in 1793. Thousands of other French citizens were killed. Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the Republic in 1799. He later made himself Emperor of the First Empire (1804–1814). His armies conquered most of continental Europe. The metric system was invented by French scientists during the French revolution. That time 3 estates were developed.


title: France

text: After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, another monarchy arose. Later Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte created the Second Empire in 1852. Louis-Napoléon was removed after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The Third Republic replaced his regime.


title: France

text: The large French colonial empire in the 19th century included parts of West Africa and Southeast Asia. The culture and politics of these regions were influenced by France. Many ex-colonies officially speak the French language.


title: France

text: The country actively took part in both the First and Second World Wars, with battles taking place on its soil. During the First World War, millions were killed in the trenches including over a million in the Battle of the Somme. The conditions were extremely difficult for the soldiers on the front. The last surviving veteran was Pierre Picault who died on 20 November 2008 at the age of 109.


title: France

text: During the Second World War, Nazis occupied France. The Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944 and began the Battle of Normandy. German forces lost France in just a few months.


title: France

text: The 13 regions and 96 departments of metropolitan France include Corsica. France is divided into (administrative) regions:


title: France

text: Corsica has a different status than the other 12 metropolitan regions. It is called "collectivité territoriale".


title: France

text: These four overseas regions have the same status as the metropolitan ones. They are like the overseas American states of Alaska and Hawaii.


title: France

text: Then France is divided into 101 departments. The departments are divided into 342 arrondissements. The "arrondissements" are re-divided into 4,032 cantons. The smallest subdivision is the commune (there are 36,699 communes). On 1 January 2008, INSEE counted 36,781 communes in France. 36,569 of them are in metropolitan France and 212 of them are in overseas France.


title: France

text: The government of France is a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the French Fifth Republic. The constitution declares the nation to be "an indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic". It provides for a separation of powers.


title: France

text: France has about 359,000 military personnel. France spends 2.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. This is the highest in the European Union. France and the UK spend 40% of the EU defence budget. About 10% of France's defence budget is for its nuclear weapons force.


title: France

text: France is a member of the United Nations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and has veto rights. It is also a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It hosts the headquarters of the OECD, UNESCO and Interpol. In 1953, the United Nations asked France to choose a coat of arms to represent them internationally. The French emblem is now on their passports.


title: France

text: France was a founding member of the European Union. In the 1960s, France wanted to exclude the United Kingdom from the organisation. It wanted to build its own economic power in continental Europe. France and Germany became closer after World War II. This was to try to become the most influential country in the EU. It limited the influence of the new Eastern European members. France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). However, under President de Gaulle, it left the joint military command. In the early 1990s, France received criticism for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia. France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies. For instance it has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in the Ivory Coast and Chad.


title: France

text: France is a member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries. France has the eighth-largest economy in the world by Gross domestic product (GDP) (which takes into account how much it costs to live in different countries and inflation rates). France and 11 other European Union members jointly launched the euro on 1 January 1999 and started using it in 2002.


title: France

text: France's economy has nearly 2.9 million registered companies. The government has a considerable influence over railway, electricity, aircraft, and telecommunications firms (as it owns big companies like SNCF and EDF (French electricity)). France has an important aerospace (design of aircraft and spacecraft) industry led by Airbus. It can also launch rockets from French Guiana.


title: France

text: France has invested a lot in nuclear power. This made France the smallest producer of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialised countries in the world. As a result, 59 nuclear power plants generate most of the electricity produced in the country (78% in 2006, up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990).


title: France

text: France is the leading agricultural producer and exporter in Europe. France exports wheat, poultry, dairy products, beef, and pork. It is also famous for its wine industry. France received 10 billion euros in 2006 from the European Community as subsidies to its farmers.


title: France

text: On 1 January 2008, it was estimated that 63.8 million people live in France, including in the Overseas Regions of France. 61,875,000 of these live in metropolitan France, the part of the country that is within Europe.


title: France

text: The major ethnic groups living in France today are descended from Celtic people and Roman people. The significant minority groups living in France are:


title: France

text: French is the official language of France. It belongs to the Romance language group, which includes Italian and Spanish. Many regional dialects are also used in France. Alsatian, a German dialect, is spoken in Alsace and in parts of Lorraine in eastern France. French was the language of diplomacy and culture in Europe between the 17th and 19th century and is still widely used.


title: France

text: France is a secular country and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. The population is about 51% Roman Catholic, and 31% of people are agnostics or atheists. 5% are Muslim, 3% say they are Protestant and 1% say they are Jewish. 10% are from other religions or do not have an opinion about religion. There are also Zoroastrian, Unitarian Universalist, Jain and Wiccan communities. Religions founded in France include Raelism.


title: France

text: French literature began in the Middle Ages. French was divided into several dialects at the time. Some authors spelled words differently from one other.


title: France

text: During the 17th century, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Blaise Pascal and René Descartes were the main authors.


title: France

text: In the 18th and 19th centuries, French literature and poetry reached its best. The 18th century saw writings of authors, essayists and moralists as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


title: France

text: As for French children's literature in those times, Charles Perrault wrote stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood", "Beauty and the Beast", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Puss in Boots".


title: France

text: Many famous French novels were written in the 19th century by authors such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Jules Verne. They wrote popular novels like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte-Cristo, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables. Other 19th century fiction writers include Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal.


title: France

text: Famous novels were written during the 20th century by Marcel Proust, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Houellebecq.


title: France

text: The Tour de France cycling race in July is one of the best-known sporting events. It is a three-week race of around 3,500 km that covers most of France and ends in the centre of Paris, on the "Avenue des Champs-Elysées". Football is another popular sport in France. The French team won the FIFA World Cup in 1998 and 2018. They also won the UEFA European Football Championship in 1984 and 2000. France also hosts the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race. France also hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2007 and finished fourth.


title: France

text: France is closely associated with the Modern Olympic Games. At the end of the 19th century, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin suggested having the Olympic Games again. France hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1900 and 1924, in Paris. France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024, in Paris. France also hosted the Winter Games three times: in 1924 in Chamonix, in 1968 in Grenoble, and in 1992 in Albertville.


title: France

text: French cuisine has influenced the style of cooking throughout Europe, and its chefs work in restaurants throughout the world.


title: France

text: The roots of modern "haute cuisine" lie in chefs like La Varenne (1615–1678) and the notable chef of Napoleon, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833). These chefs developed a lighter style of food compared to the food of the Middle Ages. They used fewer spices, and more herbs and creamy ingredients.


title: France

text: Typical ingredients like roux and fish stock, and techniques such as marinading, and dishes such as ragout, were invented. Carême was an expert pâtissier (pastry-maker), and this is still a mark of French cooking. He developed basic sauces, his 'mother sauces'; he had over a hundred sauces in his repertoire, based on the half-dozen mother sauces.


title: France

text: French cuisine was introduced in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935). He was a genius at organisation. He worked out how to run large restaurants, as in a big hotel or a palace; how the staff should be organised; how the menu was prepared. He had methods for everything. Escoffier's largest contribution was the publication of "Le Guide Culinaire" in 1903, which established the fundamentals of French cookery. Escoffier managed the restaurants and cuisine at the Savoy Hotel and Carlton Hotel in London, the Hôtel Ritz Paris, and some of the greatest cruise ships.


title: France

text: Gastro-tourism and the "Guide Michelin" helped to make people familiar with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside in the 20th century. Gascon cuisine has also had great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France. Many dishes that were once regional have become common all over the country. Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles regionally and nationally. In the north of France, people often prefer to use butter to cook. In the south, they prefer olive oil and garlic. In France, each region has its own special dish; choucroute in Alsace, quiche in Lorraine, cassoulet in the Languedoc-Roussillon, and tapenade in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.


title: France

text: In November 2010, French gastronomy was added by UNESCO to its lists of the world's 'intangible cultural heritage'.


title: France

text: France is the number one tourist destination in the world. In 2007, 81.9 million foreign tourists visited France. Spain comes second (58.5 million in 2006) and the United States comes third (51.1 million in 2006).


title: France

text: Some of the most famous attractions in Paris, are the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Another one is Mont Saint Michel, in Normandy.


title: France

text: A European Disneyland is located in a suburb east of Paris. The resort opened in 1992 and is also a popular tourist destination in Europe.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince Rogers Nelson (better known as Prince) (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American musician and dancer. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


title: Prince (musician)

text: He was known for blending erotic lyrics with funk rock and technology. He had ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. His releases have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. From 1993 to 2000, Prince changed his name to a glyph. Since this symbol was impossible to pronounce, people began calling him "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince."


title: Prince (musician)

text: In addition to his own musical career, he was a "talent promoter" for the careers of Sheila E., Carmen Electra, The Time and Vanity 6.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince has sold over 400 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. "Rolling Stone" ranked Prince at number 27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. This was the first year he was eligible.


title: Prince (musician)

text: On April 21, 2016, Prince died of a fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota at the age of 57.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson, on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father was John Lewis Nelson who was a Jazz singer-songwriter. His mother was Mattie Della Shaw. His family was from Louisiana. He had epilepsy when he was younger. His sister was Tyka Nelson. He played basketball when he was in high school.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince released his first single, "Soft and Wet", in 1978. It reached number 92 in the "Billboard" 100. In 1979 "I Wanna Be Your Lover" was number one for two weeks in the American R&B singles chart.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince released his third album "Dirty Mind" in 1980. "Rolling Stone" gave the album four and a half stars.


title: Prince (musician)

text: In 1982 Prince released his fifth album "1999". "Little Red Corvette" was released as the second single. Prince had his first number one single, "When Doves Cry", in 1984. The single he released after that, "Let's Go Crazy", also reached number one. In 1985 "Around the World in a Day" was released. The album's first single "Raspberry Beret" reached number two in the Billboard 100. Prince's next number one "Kiss" was in 1986. It won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. "U Got the Look" was released in 1987. It reached number two in the "Billboard" 100.


title: Prince (musician)

text: In 1990 Sinead O'Connor reached number one with her cover of Prince's song "Nothing Compares 2 U". Prince was angry about this.


title: Prince (musician)

text: In 2006 the second single from Prince's album "3121" entered the "Billboard" 100 at number 60. This was the highest number a Prince single had entered the chart at for years.


title: Prince (musician)

text: In 2014 it was reported that Prince would be signed to Warner Bros. again. Prince released a new single on April 19 called "The Breakdown".


title: Prince (musician)

text: In May 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray and the riots, Prince released a song entitled "Baltimore" in tribute to Gray and in support of the protesters in Baltimore. He also held a surprise tribute concert for Gray at his Paisley Park estate called 'Dance Rally 4 Peace' in which he asked fans to wear the color gray in honor of Freddie Gray.


title: Prince (musician)

text: His album "Hit n Run Phase One" was first made available on September 7, 2015 on music streaming service Tidal before being released on CD and download on September 14.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Over the years Prince was romantically linked with many celebrities. These include Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, Anna Fantastic, Sherilyn Fenn, and Susan Moonsie of Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6.


title: Prince (musician)

text: He married his backup singer and dancer, Mayte Garcia, on Valentine's Day, 1996. They had a son, amiir (born October 16, 1996). He was born with Pfeiffer syndrome and died a week after birth. Prince and Mayte divorced in 1999. In 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony. Testolini filed for divorce in May 2006. He had been in a relationship with Bria Valente from 2007.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince postponed two performances from his Piano & A Microphone Tour on April 7, 2016, at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, stating that he was "battling the flu". He performed that Atlanta concert on Thursday, April 15, even though he had still not been feeling well. On April 15, 2016, while on tour, his private plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois. He was later admitted to hospital with flu-like symptoms. Early reports said his health was fine.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Prince was found dead at his home in Paisley Park recording studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota, on April 21, 2016. He was aged 57. Six days before his death, Prince was treated for a drug overdose. He was treated for dehydration and walking pneumonia shortly before his death. His autopsy was performed the next day on April 22. Afterwards, his remains were cremated. Their location will be kept private. Toxicology tests showed that he died of an overdose of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller.


title: Prince (musician)

text: Earning 33 nominations, Prince has won seven Grammys. He also has had two albums − "1999" and "Purple Rain" − awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award.


title: Prince (musician)

text: The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) is an award show by cable network MTV to honor the top music videos of the year. It was first held in September 1984. It was to be an alternative to the Grammy Awards in the video category. Prince has won four awards from twelve nominations throughout his career.


title: Baseball

text: Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played on a field by two teams against each other. In baseball, a player on one team throws a small round ball at a player on the other team, who tries to hit it with a bat. Then the player who hits the ball has to run around the field. Players get runs by running around in a full circle around three points on the ground called bases, to back where they started, which is called home plate. They have to do this without getting caught by the players on the other team.


title: Baseball

text: Baseball started in the United States in the 1700s and 1800s. Many people in North America, South America, and East Asia play baseball, but the sport is most known in the United States and Japan. In the U.S., baseball is called the "national pastime", because so many people in the United States used to spend a lot of time playing or watching baseball games. Today, though, most Americans follow football more than baseball, especially when it comes time for the Super Bowl.


title: Baseball

text: A game of baseball is played by two teams on a baseball field. Each team has 9 players. There are also 4 umpires. There is one for where young players play. Umpires watch everything carefully to decide what happened, make calls about a play, and make sure everyone follows the rules.


title: Baseball

text: On a baseball field, there are four bases. The bases form a diamond that goes around the field to the right from the starting base. The starting base is called "home plate". Home plate is a pentagon, which is a shape that has five sides. First base is on the right side of the field, second base is at the top of the infield, third base is on the left side of the field, and home plate is at the back of the field, where the catcher plays.


title: Baseball

text: The game is played in "innings". Professional baseball games have 9 innings. In an inning, each team has one turn to bat and try to score "runs", adding one point. When one team hits the ball, the other team defends and tries to get three players on the other team "out". The team that is playing defense always has the ball. This is different from other team sports. When the team on defense gets three players out, it is their turn to try and score runs. Then the team that was batting starts playing defense, and the team that was playing defense starts batting. After nine innings, the team that has the most runs is the winner. If the teams have the same number of runs, they play more innings until one team wins. At the start of the game, the home team pitches, while players on the visiting team bat. Only one player can bat at a time.


title: Baseball

text: The baseball field, or "diamond", has two main parts, the infield and the outfield. The "infield" is where the four bases are. The "outfield" is beyond the bases, from the view of home plate. The lines from home plate to first base and home plate to third base are the "foul lines", and the ground outside of these lines is called "foul territory". A ball that is hit with a bat and flies between the foul lines is a "fair ball", and the batter and runners can try and run around the bases and score. A ball that is outside the foul lines is a "foul ball". If the ball hits the ground in the foul area rather than being caught in the air, the batter continues to bat, and any runners must return to the base that they were on before the ball was hit. If the batter has fewer than two strikes, a foul ball counts as a strike. If the batter already has two strikes, and the foul ball is not caught in the air, then the batter continues to hit. If a ball is caught by a fielder in fair or foul ground, the batter is out.


title: Baseball

text: The most important part of the game is between the "pitcher" and the "batter". The pitcher throws, or "pitches", the ball towards home plate. The pitcher normally throws the ball close enough for the batter to hit it. If the pitcher throws the ball in the strike zone, which is the area over home plate and between the hitter's knee and chest, the pitch is a "strike", unless the batter hits the ball. The pitch is always a strike, regardless of where it is, if the batter swings the bat and misses, so the batter must have good aim with the bat. Three strikes are a "strikeout", and this is one way to make an "out". A pitch that the batter does not swing at, and which is not called a strike, is a "ball." On the fourth "ball" thrown by a pitcher, the batter "walks" to first base, so it is important to pitch well.


title: Baseball

text: The "catcher" for the pitcher's team waits behind the batter, and catches any ball that the batter does not hit. The catcher uses signals to tell the pitcher where to throw the ball. If the pitcher does not like what the catcher says, he will shake his head, which signals "no". If he agrees with what the catcher has signaled, he will nod his head, which signals "yes".


title: Baseball

text: There are many ways to get batters out, and runners can also be gotten out. Some common ways to get batters out are catching a batted ball in the air, whether in fair or foul territory, throwing the ball to the defensive player at first base (an out if it gets there before the batter), and a strikeout. A runner can be put out by tagging the runner while the runner is not on a base, and by "forcing him out" (when a base is touched before a player can get there, with no base for the runner to go back to). When the fielding team has put out three of the batting team's players, the "half-inning" is over and the team in the field and the team at bat switch places.


title: Baseball

text: The batting team wants to get runs. In order to get a run, a player must bat, then become a base runner, touch all the bases in order, and then touch home plate without being called out. So first, the batter wants to make other players get to home plate, or to run the bases himself. Runners can not pass each other while running the bases.


title: Baseball

text: A base runner who touches home plate after touching all previous bases in order, and without getting out, scores a "run". If the batter hits the ball over the fence (between the foul lines) without touching the ground, it is a home run. The batter, and any base-runners, are allowed to advance to the home plate and score a run. The fielding team can do nothing to stop them.


title: Baseball

text: The team on the field tries not to let the team who's batting get any runs. The fielding team has a pitcher and a catcher. The remaining seven fielders can stand anywhere in the field. However, there are usually four people that stand around the infield close to the bases and three "outfielders" who stand around the outfield.


title: Baseball

text: The four infielders are the "first baseman", "second baseman", "shortstop", and "third baseman". The first baseman and third baseman stand close to first base and third base. The second baseman and the shortstop stand on either side of second base.


title: Baseball

text: The first baseman's job is to make "force plays" at first base. In a force play, another infielder catches a ball that has touched the ground, and throws it to the first baseman. The first baseman must then touch the batter or the base with the ball before the batter can touch first base. Then the batter is out. First basemen need to have quick feet, stretch well, be quick and know how to catch wild throws. First base is one of the most important positions as a significant number of plays happen there.


title: Baseball

text: The second baseman's job is to cover the area to the right of second base and to back the first baseman up. The shortstop's job is to cover the area between second and third bases. This is where right-handed batters usually hit ground balls. The shortstop also covers second or third base and the near part of left field. The shortstop is usually the best fielder on the team. The third baseman needs to have a strong throwing arm. This is because many times the batter will hit a ball toward third base. The third baseman must throw the ball very quickly to the first baseman, to get the runner out. Because the balls that go to third base are usually hit very hard, the third baseman must also be very quick.


title: Baseball

text: The three outfielders are called the "left fielder", the "center fielder", and the "right fielder", because they stand in left field, center field and right field. Left field and right field are on the left and right sides, if you look out from home plate. Center field is straight ahead from home plate. Center field is very big, so the center fielder is usually the fastest.


title: Baseball

text: The team can decide where to put the infielders and outfielders. Players often stand at slightly different places on the field between some plays. These changes are called "shifts". The fielders may shift at any time. Players can shift for many reasons. One of the more popular ones is the "defensive shift", where players move in the infield. They do this because they know that some batters can only hit a ball a certain direction. It can also be easier to make a double play when fielders are moved a certain way.


title: Baseball

text: Teams can change pitchers during a game. Teams change their pitchers often because it is hard for a pitcher to throw a full game of nine innings. A pitcher can sometimes throw a no-hitter where no one on the opposite team gets an earned hit. A team can use as many pitchers as it wants to, but it is rare to use more than eight in a game. The ways that a pitcher throws the ball are called "pitches". Many professional pitchers use two or more different pitches. Pitchers change which pitch they throw so that the batter will not know what pitch to expect. This makes it more difficult for the batter to hit the ball. Pitchers can make the ball move differently: faster or slower, closer or farther from the batter, higher or lower. There are also many types of pitches, such as the curveball, slider, splitter, sinker, screwball, cutter, knuckleball, knuckle-curve, changeup, circle changeup, palm ball, and others, including some made from mixing others together .


title: Baseball

text: When throwing the ball, the pitcher stand on top of the pitcher's mound with both feet. The pitcher's rubber is on top of the mound. The pitcher cannot take more than one step forward when he throws the ball. That makes the pitcher throw the ball slower. Many major-league pitchers can throw the ball up to 100 miles per hour (145 km/h). Throwing a baseball that fast can be bad for the body, and they can be injured often. Doctors often will perform Tommy John surgery on a pitcher with an elbow injury. The operation is named after Tommy John, the first pitcher to have the surgery. Today, pitchers are able to recover from their injuries much faster and better than before Tommy John surgery.


title: Baseball

text: The batting team wants to get runs. The batting team sends its players up to home plate in a special order. This order is called the "lineup". Each team chooses its lineup at the start of the game. After the game starts, the team cannot change the order. But the team can use a player who was not on the lineup. The new player has to change with an original player. The new player's name is written in the lineup where the original player's name was. After the ninth player has batted, the first player in the lineup starts again. If a runner comes to home plate, he scores a run. Then he is not a base runner. After scoring a run, the player must leave the field until it is his turn again. So a player can only score one run for each time he bats.


title: Baseball

text: Since people began to have more free time, baseball has become the national pastime of America. About 12 million people play baseball in the United States.


title: C (programming language)

text: The C programming language is a low-level (close to the computer) computer programming language that was developed to do system programming for the operating system UNIX and is an imperative programming language. C was developed in the early 1970s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. It is a procedural language, which means that people can write their programs as a series of step-by-step instructions. C is a compiled language. This means that the computer doesn't have to build the application every time it is opened.


title: C (programming language)

text: Because the ideas behind C are kept close to the design of the computer, the compiler (program builder) can generate machine code/native code for the computer. Programs built in machine code can be very fast. C has a variety of uses. From writing simple console applications, to even operating systems, such as Linux, MacOS and UNIX. The language itself has very few keywords, and most things are done using libraries, which are collections of code made to be reused. C has a big standard library called stdio, which stands for standard input/output.


title: C (programming language)

text: There are three successive standards for the C programming language "ANSI C, ISO C" and "Standard C" which are published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).


title: C (programming language)

text: C is available for many different types of computers. This is why C is called a "portable" language. A program that is written in C and that respects certain limitations can be compiled for most platforms, and all in mainstream use.


title: C (programming language)

text: The syntax of C has also influenced many other programming languages, such as C++, C#, and Java, and many more programming languages we use nowadays.


title: C (programming language)

text: Here is an example of a program written in C. When built and run it will show "Hello world!", followed by a new line on the computer screen.


title: Grass

text: Grass is a plant with narrow leaves growing from the base. A common kind of grass is used to cover the ground in places such as lawns and parks. Grass is usually the colour ‘green’. Grasses are monocotyledon, herbaceous plants.


title: Grass

text: The grasses include the "grass", of the family Poaceae (also called Gramineae). Also sometimes it is used to include the sedges (Cyperaceae) and the rushes (Juncaceae). These three families are "not" closely related but belong to different clades in the order Poales. They are similar adaptations to a common life-style.


title: Grass

text: The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns (turf) and grassland. Uses for graminoids include food (as grain, sprouted grain, shoots or rhizomes), drink (beer, whisky), pasture for livestock, thatching thatch, paper, fuel, clothing, insulation, construction, sports turf, basket weaving and many others.


title: Grass

text: Many grasses are short, but some grasses, like bamboo can grow very tall. Plants from the grass family can grow in many placesans make grasslands, even if they are very cold or very dry. Several other plants that look similar but are not members of the grass family are also sometimes called grass; these include rushes, reeds, papyrus, and water chestnut. Seagrass is a monocot in the order Alismatales.


title: Grass

text: Grasses are an important food for many animals, like deer, buffalo, cattle, mice, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and many other grazers. Unlike other plants, grasses grow from the bottom, so when animals eat grass they usually do not destroy the part that grows. This is a part of why they are successful. Without grass, earth may wash away into rivers (erosion).


title: Grass

text: Graminoids include some of the most versatile plant life-forms. They became widespread toward the end of the Cretaceous. Fossilized dinosaur dung (coprolites) have been found containing grass phytoliths (silica stones inside grass leaves). Grasses have adapted to conditions in lush rain forests, dry deserts, cold mountains and even intertidal habitats, and are now the most widespread plant type. Grass is a valuable source of food and energy for many animals.


title: Grass

text: Lawn grass is often planted on sports fields and in the area around a building. Sometimes chemicals and water is used to help lawns to grow.


title: Grass

text: People have used grasses for a long time. People eat parts of grasses. Corn, wheat, barley, oats, rice and millet are cereals, common grains whose seeds are used for food and to make alcohol such as beer.


title: Grass

text: Sugar comes from sugar cane, which is also a plant in the grass family. People have grown grasses as food for farm animals for about 4,000 years. People use bamboo to build houses, fences, furniture and other things. Grass plants can also be used as fuel, to cover roofs, and to weave baskets.


title: Paris

text: Paris (nicknamed the ""City of light"") is the capital city of France, and the largest city in France. The area is , and around 2.15 million people live there. If suburbs are counted, the population of the Paris area rises to 10.7 million people. It is the most densely populated city in the European Union, with 20.653 people per square kilometer.


title: Paris

text: The Seine river runs through the oldest part of Paris, and divides it into two parts, known as the Left Bank and the Right Bank. It is surrounded by many forests.


title: Paris

text: Paris is also the center of French economy, politics, traffic and culture. Paris has many art museums and historical buildings. As a traffic center, Paris has a very good underground subway system (called the "Metro"). It also has two airports. The Metro was built in 1900, and its total length is more than .


title: Paris

text: The city has a multi-cultural style, because 19% of the people there are from outside France. There are many different restaurants with all kinds of food. Paris also has some types of pollution like air pollution and light pollution.


title: Paris

text: Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic "Parisii" tribe in 51 BC. The Romans called the place "Lutetia" of the Parisii, or ""Lutetia Parisiorum"". The place got a shorter name, ""Paris"", in 212 AD.


title: Paris

text: As the Roman Empire began to fall apart in the West, the Germanic tribe called the Franks moved in, taking it in 464. In 507, their king Clovis I made it his capital. Charlemagne moved his capital to Aachen in Germany, but Paris continued as an important town and was attacked by the Vikings twice. When Hugh Capet became king of France in 987, he again made Paris his capital. For a long time, the kings only controlled Paris and the surrounding area, as much of the rest of France was in the hands of barons or English. During the Hundred Years' War, the English controlled Paris from 1420 to 1437.


title: Paris

text: During the Protestant Reformation, a huge massacre of French Protestants started there in 1572, called the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Paris saw many other troubles over the years of the ""Ancien Régime"" (Old Kingdom), then in 1789, the French Revolution began in Paris, leading to more massacres.


title: Paris

text: Paris was the Capital of the French Empire which, as well as France, covered Spain, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, most of Germany and some of Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. The Empire ruled by Napoleon was from 1804 to 1814/1815. The Russian army seized Paris from Napoleon in 1814, and the Prussian army captured it in 1871. The next time it was captured was by the Nazi Germans in 1940. The Allies freed the city in 1944 and it has not since been captured.


title: Paris

text: Also, the city has been featured in many songs including the Number #1 hit song by Jay-Z and Kanye West called "Niggas In Paris"


title: Paris

text: Paris has an oceanic climate in the Köppen climate classification. It has warm summers and cold winters, and rainfall year-round.


title: Paris

text: Because the city of Paris is roughly only 10 kilometres \ 6 miles across, visitors have a wide range of options when it comes to transportation. While much of the more well-known attractions are in the center of the city and are best experienced by walking, there are many destinations that require other means of transport. While taxis offer a fast and relatively inexpensive means of travel, Paris’ public transportation system offers an enjoyable, stress-free way to explore the city.


title: Paris

text: The Paris Métro system was built in 1900 by engineer Fulgence Bienvenüe and architect Hector Guimard. The Métro covers over 198 kilometers\124 miles with 300 stations and 16 lines. Servicing over 6 million residents and tourists every day, the Métro was designed to be an efficient and reliable alternative to the congestion of traffic. Every building in Paris is less than 500 meters from a train station, so accessibility is never a problem. The 16 Métro lines are identified by their final destinations. A rider can simply select the appropriate line and take it in the direction s/he wants. The Métro stations are well marked, and there are ticket booths at most entrances.


title: Paris

text: There are five airports that serve Paris: Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly Airport, Beauvais-Tillé Airport and Paris–Le Bourget Airport, and Châlons Vatry Airport.


title: Judaism

text: Judaism (Hebrew: יהדות) is the world's oldest Abrahamic religion. It is almost 4,000 years old and originated in Israel. There are about 15 million followers. They are called Jews or Jewish people. It is the oldest monotheistic religion. The Torah is the most important holy book of Judaism. The laws and teachings of Judaism come from the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible and oral traditions. Some of these were first oral traditions and later written in the Mishnah, the Talmud, and other works.


title: Judaism

text: Both Christianity and Islam are related to Judaism. These religions accept the belief in one God and the moral teachings of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), which includes the Torah or "תורה."


title: Judaism

text: The three main beliefs at the center of Judaism are Monotheism, Identity, and covenant (an agreement between God and God's people).


title: Judaism

text: The most important teaching of Judaism is that there is one God, who wants people to do what is just and compassionate. Judaism teaches that a person serves God by learning the holy books and doing what they teach. These teachings include both ritual actions and ethics. Judaism teaches that all people are made in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.


title: Judaism

text: The main teachings of Judaism are about God, that there is only one God. According to Judaism, only God created the universe and only God controls it. Jewish people refer to God by many names. The most holy name for God in Judaism is "Yahweh", though most Jews avoid saying this name aloud due to how holy it is. Judaism also teaches that God is spiritual and not physical.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that God is one – a unity: God is one whole, complete being. God cannot be divided into parts and people cannot say how God looks in words; they can only say how God is and what God does.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that all goodness and morality is from God. God is interested in what people do and that God watches what they do.


title: Judaism

text: Judaism teaches that all people are made in the image of God. This is why people must be treated with dignity and respect. A person serves God by being like God. This means that they must do what is fair and just, show mercy, and behave with kindness and love for people.


title: Judaism

text: Judaism says that God exists forever, that God is everywhere, and that God knows everything. God is above nature (“supernatural”) but God is in the world and hears those who pray to God and will answer them. God is the main power in the universe.


title: Judaism

text: Judaism teaches that God allows people to choose what to do – this is called “free will.” Free will is the freedom to do whatever a person wants, but that they must be responsible for their own actions. People are responsible for their actions. God rewards people who do good, and will punish those who do wrong. God gives a person a reward or a punishment in this world, but God gives the final reward or punishment to the soul of the person after their death.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that God made an agreement called a “covenant” with Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people. The Bible says that God promised to bless Abraham and his descendants if they worshipped God and were faithful to God. God made this covenant with Abraham's son, Isaac, and with Isaac's son, Jacob. God gave Jacob another name, Israel. This is how Jacob’s descendants got the name the “Children of Israel” or “Israelites.” God later gave the Torah to the Israelites through their leader, Moses. The Torah told the Israelites how to live and build their community. God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments and other laws in the Torah (613 in total).


title: Judaism

text: The Jews are sometimes called the “Chosen People". This is because the Bible says God told them, “You will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6) and “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord chose you to be God's own special nation out of all peoples on the earth” (Deuteronomy 14:2). Jews understand that this means they have special duties and responsibilities commanded by God. For example, Jews must build a just society and serve only God. Jews believe that this covenant works in two ways: if they follow God’s laws, God will give them God's love and protection, but they are also responsible for their sins – bad actions – and disobeying what God told them. Jews believe that they must teach other people that God exists and that God wants all people to do good actions. Jews believe that their job in the world is to be "a light to the nations" (Isiah 49:6) by showing the people of the world ways to make the world a better place.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that God has given them a special job which is to repair the world. Their job is to make the world a better place with more good in it. They must use the things in the world to increase good and come closer to God. They call this “"tikkun olam"” – repairing the world. Jews see themselves and all people as partners with God. People must repair the world in any way they can – to find ways to lessen suffering of people and animals, to make more peace, bring respect between people and protect the earth’s environment from destruction.


title: Judaism

text: Jews do not try to convince other people to believe in Judaism. Jews believe they have a special job to show the world that God exists, but people do not have to be Jewish to follow God. All people can serve God by following the Seven Commandments (rules) given to Noah. But, Judaism accepts people who choose to change their religion to Judaism.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that God tells them in the Torah the way of life that they must follow. The Torah says God wants the people of Israel to walk in God's ways, to love God, and to serve God, and to keep God’s commandments (Deut. 10:12–13). Actions are more important than beliefs and beliefs must be made into actions.


title: Judaism

text: These actions are called “"mitzvot"” in Hebrew (singular: a "mitzvah" מִצְוָה). Sometimes they are called “laws,” "rules" or “commandments”. Many people think of a mitzvah as "a good act," or "a good thing to do." There are 613 "mitzvot" in the Torah. Jews believe that the Torah gives "mitzvot" for all people; all people must keep seven laws that were taught to Noah and his children after the flood. The Jews must keep 613 mitzvot, which are listed in the Torah. The rabbis counted 365 "mitzvot" that Jews must not do (negative "mitzvot"), and 248 "mitzvot" that Jews must do (positive "mitzvot"). Some "mitzvot" are for everyday life, and some are only for special times, such as Jewish holidays. Many of the 613 "mitzvot" are about the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and cannot be done now, since the Temple was destroyed.


title: Judaism

text: Some of the "mitzvot" are about how people must act to other people. For example, they must give charity to a poor person, or help a person who is in danger. They must not steal or lie. These are ethical and moral "mitzvot".


title: Judaism

text: Some "mitzvot" are about how people must act towards God. For example, they must respect God’s name, or not work on the Sabbath. These are religious or ritual "mitzvot". Jews believe that God tells them to do both ethical and religious acts.


title: Judaism

text: Jews see "mitzvot" as acts that sanctify – bring holiness – to the world and bring people and the world closer to God. Jews do the "mitzvot" to sanctify the physical world and the things in it, such as food and drink, clothing, and natural activities such as sex, work, or seeing beautiful sights. Before doing many acts, such as eating, Jews say a blessing – a short prayer – that God makes and gives a person the things that they need for life. In Judaism, life is most holy and important. A Jew must stop doing other "mitzvot" of the Torah to help save another person’s life.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that they must do the "mitzvot" with happiness and joy because the Bible says “Serve God with joy; come before God with singing” (Psalms 100:2). Doing a "mitzvah" helps a person come close to God and that makes the person happy. A group of Jews called the Hasidim say this is the best way to live. They say that worrying takes people away from joy and they will not see the beauty and good in the world.


title: Judaism

text: Many "mitzvot" in the Torah are about the Land of Israel. The Talmud and later books call these "mitzvot" “commandments connected to the Land” because Jews can only do them in the Land of Israel. For example, Jews give gifts to the poor or the priests from their fields every year, and before the Temple was destroyed, take fruit or animals to the Temple in Jerusalem, and must stop working on the land every seven years (the “shmittah” – sabbatical year).


title: Judaism

text: The Land of Israel is holy in Judaism. A Jewish belief is that God created the Earth from Mount Moriah in Jerusalem in the Land of Israel, and God is always closest to this land. Jews believe that this land is where God told the Jewish people to build a society to serve God, and many "mitzvot" (commandments) in the Torah are about the Land of Israel.


title: Judaism

text: The Jewish people believe their history as a nation begins with Abraham. The story of Abraham in the Torah begins when God tells Abraham to leave his country. God promises Abraham and his descendants a new home in the land of Canaan. This is now known as the Land of Israel. It is named after Abraham's grandson, Jacob, who was also called Israel and who was the father of the twelve tribes. This is where the name “Land of Israel” comes from. The land is also called “the Promised Land” because in the Torah, God promises to give the land to the children of Abraham (, , , ).


title: Judaism

text: The rabbis of the Talmud understood from the Torah () that it is a “mitzvah” for Jews to live in the land of Israel. They saw living outside of Israel as not natural for a Jew. Jews often called the land outside of Israel "galut." This is usually translated as "diaspora" (a place where people are scattered), but the word more closely means "exile".


title: Judaism

text: The story of leaving Egypt, called the Exodus, is very important in the way the Jewish people understand the world. The Torah tells how God took a group of slaves, the Israelites, from slavery, and tells them how to be God's partner to build the world. Jews see this story as a model for the whole world. In the future, the whole world will change, and all the people of the world will serve the one God. This will be God’s kingdom on Earth. They believe the whole of Jewish history, and world history, is part of this process.


title: Judaism

text: The prophets taught that God would send a person to the world who would help all the people of the world see that God is the maker, ruler of the world and has supreme power. This person is called the Messiah. The word Messiah comes from the Hebrew word "mashiah", which means "the anointed one". The Book of Isaiah says the Messiah will be a just king who will unite the Jewish people and lead them in God's way. The Messiah will also unite all the people of the world to serve God. People will act with justice and kindness, and the whole world will be filled with peace.


title: Judaism

text: Jews still wait for the Messiah to come. They believe that this will be a person. Other Jews believe in a future time when justice and peace will come through the cooperation of all people and the help of God.


title: Judaism

text: Jews believe that to know what God wants them to do, they must study the books of Torah and its laws and do what they teach. These include both laws about how to behave to other people and how to serve God.


title: Judaism

text: The two most important groups of books in Judaism are the Bible and the Talmud. The beliefs and actions of Judaism come from these books. Jewish teachers and scholars wrote more books, called commentaries. They explain and say more about what is written in the Bible and Talmud.


title: Judaism

text: The Torah is the most important of all Jewish writings. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as the "Old Testament") make up the Torah. The Torah contains the basic laws of Judaism and describes the history of the Jews until the death of Moses. Jewish tradition says that God told Moses what to write in the Torah, which is also called the Five Books of Moses. Religious Jews believe that Moses brought the Ten Commandments and the Torah down from Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments are special because they were heard by all of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. However, in traditional Judaism, all of the 613 "mitzvot" in the Torah are equally important.


title: Judaism

text: Jews divide the Hebrew Bible into three parts and call it the Tanakh. The three parts are the Torah, which is the first five books; the Nevi'im, which are the books of the prophets; and the Ketuvim, meaning the Writings, which are other books of history and moral teachings.


title: Judaism

text: Rabbinic Jews also believe that there is another part of the Torah besides the five books of Moses. It is called the Mishnah, also called the Oral Torah or Oral Law. It explains how to follow the laws written in the 5 books. There is a commentary (explanation) of the Mishnah, called the Gemara. Together, the Mishna and the Gemara make up the Talmud. But Karaite Jews believe that there is no additional Torah besides the five books of Moses.


title: Judaism

text: Traditional Jews believe that God gave the written Torah and the oral Torah to Moses and that Moses told it to the Jewish people, and that it is the same today as it was back then. Traditional Jews also believe that all of the commandments must still be followed today.


title: Judaism

text: Liberal Jews believe that the Torah was inspired by God but written by human beings. Liberal Jews believe that all of the ethical laws in the Torah must still be followed, but many ritual laws do not need to be followed today.


title: Judaism

text: It is considered good in Judaism to talk about the commandments and to try to understand how to follow them. The Talmud has many stories about Rabbis who argued about the commandments. Over time, some opinions have become the rule for everyone. Some rules are still being argued about. Jews praise logical argument and looking for truth.


title: Judaism

text: There is no single leader of Judaism who can decide how to follow the commandments or what to believe. Even though Jews believe different things and they disagree about the rules, they are still one religion and one people.


title: Judaism

text: Jews who follow the religious rules called "kashrut" only eat some types of food that are prepared by special rules. Food that a Jew can eat is called "kosher" food.


title: Judaism

text: Traditional Jews are very careful about kashrut. They usually cannot eat many foods in non-kosher restaurants or in the home of someone who does not keep kosher. Sometimes, this makes it hard to visit people or to do business. People help avoid this problem by choosing to dine with Traditional Jews in a kosher restaurant or serve them kosher food in their home.


title: Judaism

text: One of the commandments is to keep the Jewish Sabbath, or "Shabbat". Shabbat starts every Friday at sunset and ends on Saturday at nightfall. Shabbat is a day of rest to thank God for making the universe.


title: Judaism

text: The tradition of resting on Shabbat comes from the Torah. According to the Torah, God created the world in six days and on the seventh day, Shabbat, He rested. Many Jews go to their temple or synagogue to pray on Shabbat.


title: Judaism

text: Religious Jews follow special rules on Shabbat. These rules require Jews not to do creative work on Shabbat. One reason for this is to give people a break from all the things that make them busy during the week. This helps them focus more on appreciating God, their family, and the rest of creation. Also it reminds people that God is the creator and ruler of the world; and no matter how great a person's creative power is, it cannot compare with God's creation of the universe and everything in it. Many of these categories of creative work include actions that people might not think of as work. For instance, on Shabbat a Jew cannot:


title: Judaism

text: Traditional Jews are very careful about Shabbat. It is a special day. They clean their houses and prepare special food for Shabbat. They dress in their nicest clothes. They sing songs and say extra prayers in the synagogue. They have dinner and lunch with their families. Many families also invite guests for dinner and for lunch. They eat special food, and sing together traditional Shabbat songs. On Shabbat afternoon people study Judaism together or just visit friends.


title: Judaism

text: Liberal Jews do not follow those rules. Some do go to synagogue, visit friends, or have special meals. But they may also talk on the phone, drive cars, and go shopping.


title: Judaism

text: For a very long time, most Jews in Europe believed the same basic things about Judaism. Jews in other lands had different beliefs and customs than European Jews. About 200 years ago, a small group of Jews in Germany decided to stop believing in many parts of Judaism and try to become more "modern" and more like Germans. Those Jews were called Reform Jews.


title: Judaism

text: Today there are three main kinds of Judaism: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism. There are also kinds with a smaller number of people, such as Reconstructionist Judaism, and Karaite Judaism. Each group has its own practices according to how it understands the Jewish laws. For example, Reform (also called Liberal or Progressive) Judaism encourages people to choose the ways to be Jewish that mean the most to them based on the traditions. Reform Judaism teaches Jews to focus on the ethical laws of Judaism. Conservative Judaism developed after Reform Judaism. The leaders of Conservative Judaism felt that Reform Judaism was too radical. They wanted to conserve (protect) Jewish tradition instead of reforming (changing) it. Orthodox Jews do not believe that Reform or Conservative Judaism are correct because they believe that the laws given by God are timeless, and can't be changed.


title: Judaism

text: In the most recent survey of Jews in the United States in 2000-2001, it was found that 35% of American Jews say they are Reform, 27% say they are Conservative, 10% say they are Orthodox, 2% say they are Reconstructionist and 25% do not say what type they are.


title: Judaism

text: In Israel, almost all Jews go to Orthodox synagogues. There are very few Reform or Conservative synagogues, but there has been a steady increase since 2009. In Israel, Jews do not call themselves Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox. Instead, they mostly call themselves "Haredi" (completely religious) "Dati" (basically religious), "Masorati" (traditional/conservative) or "Chiloni" (secular). Surveys suggest about 20% of Israelis say they are secular, 25% say they are Dati or Haredi and 55% say they are traditional.


title: Judaism

text: Names are very important in Judaism. Many Jews believe that a name not only tells you who someone is, but also tells you something about them. Names of God are very special in Judaism, so Jews do not write them or speak them fully but use other words instead. That is why some Jews write G-d, with a "-" instead of an "o."


title: Judaism

text: "Adonai" means "My Lord." This name tells Jews about God's position. God is the King of the World, and his name Adonai lets us know that.


title: Judaism

text: "Elohim" means "one who is strong enough to do everything." This name is used when talking about God's power to create or God's justice. This tells us that God is the creator and that God rules the world with just laws.


title: Judaism

text: The two names above are so special that traditional Jews use these names only when they pray and read the Torah. When they are not praying or reading the Torah, they say "Hashem" (The Name) or "Elokim".


title: Judaism

text: "God" - Some Jews write "God" by replacing the "o" with a dash, like this: "G-d". They do this because God's name is very holy so they are not allowed to throw away a piece of paper with "God" written on it. However, if by accident "God" is written, then the paper can be disposed of in a special way and buried in a special place. Others say that "God" is just an English word, not Hebrew, and so it is not holy.


title: Judaism

text: "YHWH" ("Yehovah"/"Yahweh") is the most sacred name of God in Hebrew, and is not pronounced by most Jews. No one knows where the name came from, or what exactly it means. It looks like the Hebrew word "hayah," which is the verb "to be." (According to Hebrew scripture, when Moses asked God who God was, God told Moses "I am that I am/I am who I am.") Jews believe that the name YHWH shows that God is endless. Instead of trying to say it, most Jews say ""haShem"", which means "The Name." Some people pronounce this name as "Yahweh", or "Jehovah". Scholars of religion sometimes refer to "YHWH" as "the Tetragrammaton", from an old Greek word that means "four letters".


title: Democracy

text: The type of government where power is in the hands of a single person is called a dictatorship. Democracy is the opposite of a dictatorship. The Soviet Union almost always was a dictatorship, as Russia is today. Dictatorships usually act against freedom of expression.


title: Democracy

text: Elections are simple: The candidate with the most votes gets elected. Very often, the politicians being elected belongs to a political party. Instead of choosing a person, people vote for a party. The party with the most votes then picks the candidates.


title: Democracy

text: Usually, the people being elected need to meet certain conditions: They need to have a certain age or a government body needs to determine that they are suitably qualified to perform the job.


title: Democracy

text: Not everyone can vote in an election. Suffrage is only given to people who are citizens. The young are usually excluded, and some other groups such as prisoners.


title: Democracy

text: For some elections, a country makes voting compulsory. Someone who does not vote, and who does not give a good reason usually has to pay a fine


title: Democracy

text: In a direct democracy, every adult has the right to vote on individual laws. A modern example of direct democracy is a referendum, which is the name for deciding a law where everyone in the community votes on it. Direct democracies are not usually used to run countries. It is not practical to have everyone voting on everything..


title: Democracy

text: In an indirect, or representative democracy, people choose representatives to make laws for them. These people can be mayors, councilmen, members of Parliament, or other government officials. This is the usual kind of democracy. Large communities like cities and countries use this method, but it may not be needed for a small group.


title: Democracy

text: A term for democracies which are not actually democracies. For example, a constitution of a country may be democratic, but ways are find to interfere with elections. The classic case is Russia, where opposition candidates are not allowed to state their case on any of the state-controlled media. Elections for President are fixed, but the state can claim democratic legitimacy, because in principle other candidates may stand for election. Opposition candidates have no access to the media, and may be harassed in various ways. This is the way all the former parts of the Soviet Union are governed. This does not mean the governments are always bad governments. It does mean that holding "fixed" elections deprives the people of a fair vote. Not surprisingly, these countries have Presidents who are never beaten in an election. They may serve for eight years or longer before retiring. The next leaders are pre-chosen by discussion between the leading families.


title: Democracy

text: The European Parliament says Russia functions as a unitary state despite officially being a federation.


title: Democracy

text: Democracy was developed long ago by the ancient Greeks in classical Athens. There, everyone who was a citizen (not slaves, women, foreigners, and children) got together in one area. The assembly would talk about what kinds of laws they wanted and voted on them. The council would suggest the laws. All citizens were allowed in the assembly.


title: Democracy

text: The council were picked by draws (lottery). The participants in the council would change every year and the number of people in the council was at the most 500. For some offices the Athenian citizens would pick a leader by writing the name of their favorite candidate on a piece of stone or wood. The person with the most votes became the leader.


title: Democracy

text: In the Middle Ages, there were many systems, although only a few people could join in at this time. The Parliament of England began from the Magna Carta, a document which said that the King's power was limited, and protected certain rights of the people. The first elected parliament was De Montfort's Parliament in England in 1265.


title: Democracy

text: However, only a few people could actually join in. Parliament was chosen by only a few percent of the people (in 1780, fewer than 3% of people joined in). The ruler also had the power to call parliaments. After a long time, the power of Parliament began to grow. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the English Bill of Rights 1689 made Parliament more powerful. Later, the king or queen became a symbol instead of having real power.


title: Democracy

text: Democratic consolidation is how a new democracy matures. Once mature, it is unlikely to revert to dictatorship rule without an external shock.


title: Democracy

text: The idea is that unconsolidated democracies suffer from intermittent elections which are not free and fair. In other words, powerful groups are able to prevent the system working fairly.


title: Chess

text: Chess is a board game for two players. It is played on a square board, made up of 64 smaller squares, with eight squares in each row and column. Each player starts with sixteen pieces: eight pawns, two knights, two bishops, two rooks, one queen and one king. The goal of the game is for each player to try and checkmate the king of the opponent. Checkmate is a threat ('check') to the opposing king which no move can stop. It ends the game.


title: Chess

text: During the game, the two opponents take turns to move one of their pieces to a different square of the board. One player ('White') has pieces of a light color; the other player ('Black') has pieces of a dark color. There are rules about how pieces move, and about taking the opponent's pieces off the board. The player with white pieces always makes the first move. Because of this, White has a small advantage, and wins more often than Black in tournament games.


title: Chess

text: Chess is popular and is often played in competitions called chess tournaments. It is enjoyed in many countries, and is a national hobby in Russia.


title: Chess

text: Most historians agree that the game of chess was first played in northern India during the Gupta Empire in the 6th century .<ref name="H/W">Hooper D. and Whyld K. 1992. "The Oxford companion to chess". 2nd ed, Oxford University Press.</ref> This early type of chess was known as "Chaturanga", a Sanskrit word for the military. The Gupta chess pieces were divided, like their military, into the infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots. Over time, these pieces became the pawn, knight, bishop, and rook. The English words "chess" and "check" both come from the Persian word "shāh" meaning king.


title: Chess

text: The earliest written evidence of chess is found in three romances (epic stories) written in Sassanid Persia around 600. The game was known as "chatrang" or "shatranj". When Persia was taken over by Muslims (633–644) the game spread to all parts of the Muslim world. Muslim traders carried the game to Russia and Western Europe. By the year 1000, it had spread all across Europe. In the 13th century, a Spanish manuscript called "Libro de los Juegos" described the games of "shatranj" (chess), backgammon, and dice.


title: Chess

text: The game changed greatly between about 1470 to 1495. The rules of the older game were changed in the West so that some pieces (queen, bishop) had more scope, piece development was faster, and the game was more exciting. The new game formed the basis of modern international chess. Chess historians consider this to be the most important change since the game's invention.


title: Chess

text: The rules of chess are governed by the World Chess Federation, which is known by the initials FIDE, meaning "Fédération Internationale des Échecs". The rules are in the section "Laws of Chess" of the "FIDE Handbook". FIDE also give rules and guidelines for chess tournaments.


title: Chess

text: Chess is played on a square board divided into eight rows of squares called ranks and eight columns called files, with a dark square in each player's lower left corner. There are 64 squares on a chess board. The colors of the squares are laid out in a checker (chequer) pattern with light and dark squares. To make speaking and writing about chess easy, each square has a name. Rank are numbered from 1 to 8, and each file is lettered from "a" to "h". The letter assigned to a file comes before the number assigned to a rank in chess notation. Every square on the board has its own label, such as g1 or f5. The pieces are in white and black sets. The players are called White and Black, and at the start of a game each player has 16 pieces. The 16 pieces are one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns.


title: Chess

text: Each piece has its own way of moving around the board. The "X" marks the squares where the piece can move.


title: Chess

text: Most pieces capture as they move. If a piece lands on an opponent's piece, the opposing piece is taken off the board. There are three special cases:


title: Chess

text: If a move that attacks the opposing king is made, the king is said to be 'in check'. The player whose king is in check must make a move that escapes the check. A player can't move into check. The options when a player is in check are moving the king, capturing the threatening piece, or moving another piece between the threatening piece and the king.


title: Chess

text: To win the game one player must checkmate the other player. Checkmate happens when the other player's king is in check and there is no way to get out of check. The word checkmate is often shorted to "mate". Most games end with one of the players resigning (giving up) when their position is so bad that defeat seems inevitable.


title: Chess

text: Once in every game, each king can make a special move, known as "castling". When the king castles, it moves two squares to the left or right. When this happens, the rook is moved to stand on the opposite side of the King. Castling is only allowed if all of these rules are kept:


title: Chess

text: "En passant" ('in passing' in French) is a special capture. It is only available when a pawn moves forward two squares past an opposing pawn on an adjacent file. The opposing pawn must be on the 5th rank from its own side. Then the opponent's pawn can capture the double-mover "as if it had only moved one square forward". This option is open on the next move only.


title: Chess

text: For example, if the black pawn has just moved up two squares from g7 to g5, then the white pawn on f5 can take it by "en passant" on g6. The "en passant" rule was developed when pawns were allowed to make their double move. The rule made it more difficult for players to avoid pawn exchanges and blockade the position. It kept the game more open.


title: Chess

text: When a pawn moves to its eighth rank, it must be changed for a piece: a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color (player's choice). Normally, the pawn is "queened", but in some cases another piece is chosen to get an advantage. This is called 'under-promotion'.


title: Chess

text: Checkmates are rare in competitive chess. The most common ends are decisions made by one or both players.


title: Chess

text: If a player wishes to adjust a piece on the board, they must first say "J'adoube" (I adjust) or the equivalent. Apart from that, if a piece is touched it must be moved if possible. This is the 'touch and move' law. If no legal move is possible with the touched piece, the player must make a legal move with another piece. When a player's hand leaves a piece after moving it then the move is over and may not be changed (if the move was legal).


title: Chess

text: There are a few famous cases where players appeared to break this rule without being punished. The most famous example was by the then World Champion Garry Kasparov against Judit Polgar in a top-class tournament.


title: Chess

text: Competitive games of chess must be played with special chess clocks which time a player only when it is their turn to move. After moving, the player presses a button on the clock, which stops the player's clock and starts the opponent's clock. Usually the clocks are mechanical, but some are electronic. Electronic clocks can be set to various programs, and they can count moves made.


title: Chess

text: The moves of a chess game are written down by using a special chess notation. This is compulsory for any competitive game. Usually, algebraic chess notation is used. In algebraic notation, each square has one name, regardless of whether you are looking from White's side of the board or Black's. Here, moves are written in the format of: initial of piece moved – file where it moved – rank where it moved. For example, Qg5 means "queen moves to the g-file and 5th rank" (that is, to the square g5). If there are two pieces of the same type that can move to the same square, one more letter or number is added to show the file or rank from which the piece moved, e.g. Ngf3 means "knight from the g-file moves to the square f3". The letter P showing a pawn is not used, so that e4 means "pawn moves to the square e4".


title: Chess

text: If the piece makes a capture, "x" is written before the square in which the capturing piece lands on. Example: "Bxf3" means "bishop captures on f3". When a pawn makes a capture, the file from which the pawn left is used in place of a piece initial. For example: exd5 means "pawn captures on d5."


title: Chess

text: If a pawn moves to its eighth rank, getting a promotion, the piece chosen is written after the move, for example e1Q or e1=Q. Castling is written by the special notations 0-0 for kingside castling and 0-0-0 for queenside. A move which places the opponent's king in check normally has the notation "+" added. Checkmate can be written as # or ++. At the end of the game, 1-0 means "White won", 0-1 means "Black won" and ½-½ is a draw.


title: Chess

text: In print, "figurines" (like those in diagrams, but smaller) are used for the pieces rather than initials. This has the advantage of being language-free, whereas the initials of pieces are different in every language. Typefaces which include figurines can be purchased by chess authors. Also, basic notes can be added by using a system of well-known punctuation marks and other symbols. For example: ! means a good move, !! means a very good move, ? means a bad move, ?? a very bad move (sometimes called a "blunder"), !? a creative move that may be good, and ?! a doubtful move. The purpose of these methods is to make publications readable in a wider range of countries. For example, one kind of a simple "trap" known as the Scholar's mate, as in the diagram to the right, may be recorded: