title: Middle-earth locations

text: In the Third Age, the dwarves woke a Balrog deep in the mines of Khazad-dûm. The Balrog killed King Durin VI and many Dwarves. The dwarves that were not killed were forced to leave Khazad-dûm and find other places to life. Khazad-dûm got a new name, Moria. In Sindarin. Moria means "dark pit".


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Lothlórien was an elven realm. It was between the Misty Mountains and the Anduin. The realm was on the land between the rivers Anduin and Silverlode. It was close to the dwarven realm Khazad-dûm. Lothlórien was founded in the Second Age. Amdír was the first King of Lothlórien. The elves of Lothlórien fought in the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men against Sauron. In the war, Amdír was killed. His son Amroth became king after him. Amroth later left Lothlórien. After he left, the realm was ruled by Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel until the end of the Third Age. Caras Galadhon was the main city of Lothlórien. Other names of Lothlórien are the shortened nameLórien, and the names Laurelindórenan, Dwimordene (Rohirric), or The Golden Wood.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Mordor (Sindarin: "Black Land" and Quenya: "Land of Shadow") is a land in the southeastern part of Middle-earth. It is east of the Anduin. Mordor was the land of Sauron in the Second and Third Ages. Mordor is surrounded by mountain ranges. The Ered Lithui (Sindarin: "Mountains of Ash") is a range of mountains to the north of Mordor. The Ephel Dúath (Sindarin: Mountains of Shadow) is west of it, Another mountain range in the south. In the northwest is the plateau named Gorgoroth. Sauron's main fortress, Barad-dûr, is at the base of the Ered Lithui mountains. The volcano Mount Doom is south west of Barad-dûr. Many parts of Mordor are a wasteland. The southern part of Mordor, around the Sea of Núrnen was more fertile. It was used as farmland to feed the armies of Sauron.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Mirkwood is a large forest in Rhovanion. The forest was originally known as Greenwood the Great (Sindarin: "Eryn Galen").


title: Middle-earth locations

text: In the Second Age, an Elven people settled in the Greenwood. They created the Woodland Realm. The capital of the realm was on the hill Amon Lanc. After the Second Age, the Elves went to live farther north. In the 11th century T.A., Sauron chose to live in the hill-fortress of Dol Guldur on Amon Lanc. It was in the south of the forest. His evil influence darkened the woods. It had less of an effect towards the north of the forest. After this, the Greenwood became known as "Mirkwood". After the War of the Ring, evil effects of Sauron's influence were removed from the forest. It known as Eryn Lasgalen (Sindarin: "Wood of Greenleaves").


title: Middle-earth locations

text: The North-South Road is a long road running from the realm of Arnor in the north to Gondor in the south. The road begins in the city Fornost Erain, the capital of Arthedain. It crossesthe Great East Road at Bree, and runs to the southern end of the Misty Mountains. There, the road turned east, towards the cities of Minas Tirith and Osgiliath in Gondor. The road ended at Minas Ithil. A part of the road south of Bree is also known as the Greenway.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Rivendell (Sindarin: Imladris, Westron: "Karningul") was an elven city in eastern Eriador. It was founded in the Second Age by Elrond. He ruled it until the end of the Third Age.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Rohan or the Riddermark (or The Mark) was a human realm in southeastern Middle-earth. It was north of Gondor. Rohan was north of the White Mountains, southeast of Isengard and southwest of the Emyn Muil. It began as a part of Gondor named Calenardhon. The capital of Rohan is Edoras. The king's hall, Meduseld, is at Edoras.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: A plague in 1636 T.A. and the later wars, caused Calenardhon to be mostly empty. Very few people lived there. In 2509 T.A. the Rohirrim came south from the north, to help Gondor fight against an invasion of Men from the north-east and Orcs from Mordor. The Rohirrim helped Gondor win the "Battle of the Field of Celebrant" and the war. Steward Cirion of Gondor gave the land Calenardhon to the Rohirrim. The King of the Rohirrim, Eorl the Young, swore the "Oath of Eorl." He said that Rohan would come and help Gondor if it needed help in war. Afterwards, the people of the Rohirrim moved into their new land. They changed the name to the "Riddermark" or just "The Mark". Gondor called the land "Rohan" (Sindarin: "Land of the Horse-lords").


title: Middle-earth locations

text: The Shire is a land in Eriador. It is settled by hobbits. Its name in Westron was Sûza "Shire" or Sûzat "The Shire". Its name in Sindarin was i Drann. The Shire was settled by the hobbits in the 24th century T.A. It is divided into four "Farthings": the North-, West-, South- and Eastfarthing. The leaders of the Shire were "the Mayor" of Michel Delving, "the Thain" from Tuckborough and "the Master of Buckland".


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Númenor was a huge star-shaped island west of Middle-earth in the Second Age. At the beginning of the Age it was given to the human peoples who had helped the elves in the wars against Morgoth. In the middle of the island was the mountain Meneltarma. It was a holy place for the Númenoreans. Númenor was divided into six regions. Each region was in one of each of the five "star-arm" and one in the middle. The outer regions were Forostar ("Northlands"), Andustar ("Westlands"), Hyarnustar ("Southwestlands"), Hyarrostar ("Southeastlands") and Orrostar ("Eastlands") The central region was Mittalmar ("Inlands"). In the eastern part of the central region was Arandor ("Kingsland"). the capital city Armenelos and the haven Rómenna.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Their first king of Númenor was Elros Tar-Minyatur. He was the brother of Elrond. Númenor became the most powerful nation of Men. As time passed, many Númenoreans, including their kings, became power-hungry. They became enemies of the elves. Towards the end of the Second Age, Númenor was ruled by King Ar-Pharazôn the Golden. During that time, the island was destroyed and sank in the sea. Only a group of Númenoreans led by Elendil, the "Elendili" ("Elf-friends") or "the Faithful", were not destroyed with the island. They came to Middle-earth and founded the realms Arnor and Gondor. The "Akallabêth" is the story of Númenor's history and downfall.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Some of the many names of Númenor were "Westernesse", "Númenórë" (Quenya, the long form of "Númenor") and "Anadûnê" (Adûnaic), both meaning "West-land"; "Andor" (Quenya) and "Yôzâyan" (Adûnaic), which both mean "the Land of the Gift". Later it was also called "Atalantë" (Quenya) and "Akallabêth" (Adûnaic), both meaning "the Downfallen".


title: Fingering (sexual act)

text: Fingering is the act of touching different parts of the vagina such as the clitoris, vagina or vulva and sometimes the anus for the purpose of sexual arousal and stimulation with the fingers. It is like the handjob (manual stimulation of the penis). It is a common form of foreplay or mutual masturbation. To "finger oneself" is to masturbate in this way.


title: Fingering (sexual act)

text: Vaginal fingering can end in orgasm. It also may or may not include the entire sexual encounter. It may be part of foreplay or part of a start to other sexual activities. These activities can provide sexual pleasure to a partner when penetrative intercourse is not possible or desirable for whatever reason.


title: Fingering (sexual act)

text: Fingering of the butt and rectum is commonly enjoyed in preparation for further anal sex. Anal fingering can arouse a person, allowing them to relax their anus and prepare them for the insertion of a penis or a dildo.


title: Twelve Apostles

text: The Twelve Apostles, (somebody sent forth/sent out) were men who, according to the Synoptic Gospels and Christian tradition, were chosen from among the disciples (students) of Jesus Christ for a mission. Judaism had an office known as apostle (שליח)".


title: Twelve Apostles

text: The Gospel of Mark states that Jesus Christ initially sent out these twelve in pairs, to towns in Galilee.


title: Twelve Apostles

text: According to the list occurring in each of the Synoptic Gospels (, , ), the Twelve chosen by Jesus near the beginning of his ministry, those whom "also He named Apostles", were


title: Twelve Apostles

text: It should also be noted that while the "Twelve Apostles" refer to the twelve who followed Jesus during his lifetime (and later Matthias in place of Judas Iscariot), Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) can be considered as another apostle. Notably, he begins many of his epistles with "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus", or some variant. The original twelve were apostles sent out to the Jews, whereas Paul has the unique role of being the apostle to the gentiles after Christ's resurrection and ascent.


title: Twelve Apostles

text: The identity of the other apostle of the twelve, traditionally called St. Jude, varies between the Synoptic Gospels and also between ancient manuscripts of each gospel:


title: Twelve Apostles

text: The Gospel of John, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, does not offer a formal list of apostles, but does refer to the "Twelve" in , , and . The following nine apostles are identified by name:


title: Twelve Apostles

text: The individual that the Gospel of John names as Nathanael is traditionally identified as the same person that the Synoptic Gospels call Bartholomew, and most would agree that the "sons of Zebedee" is likely to be a reference to James and John, while "Judas (not Iscariot)" probably refers to Thaddaeus, also known as St. Jude. Noticeably missing from the Gospel of John are James, son of Alphaeus, Matthew, and Simon the Canaanite/Zealot.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina national football team is the national football team of Argentina. They are nicknamed La Albiceleste (the blue and whites).


"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a sentence that uses correct grammar. It is often used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create confusing, hard-to-understand sentences.


title: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

text: It has been talked about since 1967, when the sentence was used by Dmitri Borgmann in his book "Beyond Language". Later, in 1972, the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport. Rapaport is a professor at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.


text: The sentence does not have punctuation. It uses three different meanings of the word "buffalo". They are:


text: It can be broken down to "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", where "a" is adjective, "n" is noun, and "v" is verb. It means, "Bison from Buffalo, which other bison from Buffalo confuse, confuse the bison from Buffalo."


text: Other words can be used to make sentences like this one. These include "police", "fish", and "people". For example, "Fish fish fish fish fish". Other times, similar words that are spelled differently can be used: "Foul fowl foul fowl foul foul foul fowl".


title: Ethnic groups of the United States

text: There are many different ethnic groups in the United States. Most people in the United States have ancestors who came from somewhere else, often from multiple places. Some people say their ancestry is "American"; often these are people from the Southern United States whose families have been living in America since before the American Revolution.


title: Ethnic groups of the United States

text: The race is not the same as ethnicity, however. Here are the top three ethnic groups in the United States. Since many Asian and Hispanic people are classified differently, most of the groups listed are white.


title: Isis

text: Isis is a goddess in Egyptian mythology. She was known as the goddess of the moon. As goddess of life and magic, Isis protected women and children, and healed the sick. Closely linked to the throne, she was one of the greatest goddesses of Ancient Egypt.


title: Isis

text: Her symbols were the ankh, her wings, and her throne headdress. She was the sister and wife of Osiris. Isis and Osiris had a son named Horus.


title: Isis

text: The English pronunciation used, ), comes from the pronunciation of the Greek name, , which changed the Egyptian name by adding a final "-s" because of the grammatical requirements of Greek noun endings.


title: Isis

text: The Egyptian name was recorded as or . It meant '(She of the Throne)'. However, the true Egyptian pronunciation is not known because their writing system left out vowels. Based on recent studies, the reconstructed pronunciation of her name is * (ooh-saht). Later, the name in Coptic dialects was "Ēse" or "Ēsi".


title: Isis

text: To make it easier to say, Egyptologists choose to say the word as "ee-set". Sometimes they may also say "ee-sa". This is because the last "t" in her name was a feminine (female) suffix which is known to have been dropped in speech in the last stages of the Egyptian language.


title: Isis

text: Isis was perhaps the most important goddess of all Egyptian mythology. During the course of Egyptian history, Isis assumed the attributes and functions of virtually every other important goddess in the land. Her most important functions, however, were those of motherhood, marital devotion, healing the sick, and the working of magical spells and charms. She was believed to be the most powerful magician in the universe, because she had learned the Secret Name of Ra from the god himself. Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris, sister of Set, and twin sister of Nephthys. She was the mother of Horus the Child (Harpocrates), and was the protective goddess of Horus's son Amset, protector of the liver of the deceased.


title: Isis

text: Isis was responsible for protecting Horus from Set during his infancy; for helping Osiris to return to life; and for assisting her husband to rule in the land of the Dead.


title: Isis

text: Her cult seems to have originally centered, like her husband's, at Abydos near the Delta in the North (Lower Egypt). She was adopted into the family of Ra early in Egyptian history by the priests of Heliopolis. From the New Kingdom onwards (c. 1500 BC) her worship no longer had any particular identifiable center, and she became more or less universally worshiped, as her husband was.


title: Isis

text: Isis had great powers such as: healing, protection, and magic. She could even cast spells on Ra. An example of her powers is when Isis brought Osiris back to life for one night. The powers were only strong enough to bring Osiris back for a single night.


title: Isis

text: Isis is shown with a sun disk on her head. She also had a throne on her head to symbolize she was a queen. Sometimes Isis is called the egg of the goose because Geb is the father of Isis and goose represents him.


title: Isis

text: Many Egyptian gods and goddesses started in one place, and all through their history had their own city where they were worshipped, and many big cities and towns are known as the hometowns of their god or goddess. However, no local cities where Isis was worshipped have been found; all through her early history there are no known temples to her. Worship of Isis did not start until as late as the 30th dynasty; until that time Isis was worshiped in temples of other gods or goddesses. However, even in the 30th dynasty Isis was worshiped together with Horus and Osiris. Temples to Isis became common in the Roman times. There was a temple built to her at Philae.


title: Isis

text: By this time, temples to Isis began to spread outside of Egypt. In many places her followers took over the worship to the Semitic goddess Astarte, because of the similarity of names. In the Hellenistic era, she also became the goddess who protected sailors.


title: Isis

text: In all parts of the Graeco-Roman world, Isis became one of the most important figures of the "mystery religions", and many classical writers sometimes wrote about her temples, and followers. Temples to Isis were built in Iraq, Greece, Rome, even as far north as England where the remains of a temple were found at Hadrian's Wall. At Philae, she was worshiped until the 6th century, after the rise of Christianity. The fall of her temples is usually said to mark the end of ancient Egypt.


title: Isis

text: Little information on Egyptian priests of Isis has been found, but we know that there were both priests and priestesses of her followers all through her history. By the Graeco-Roman era, many of them were healers, and were said to have many other powers, including explaining dreams and the power to control the weather by braiding or combing their hair.


title: Magomed Tushayev

text: Magomed Tushayev (February 23, 1986 – February 26, 2022) was a General and advisor to the Head of the Chechen Republic. He was the commander of the 141 Motorized Regiment of the Chechnya National Guard.


title: Magomed Tushayev

text: Tushayev was part of a group who terrorized the LGBTQ community in Chechnya. This included kidnapping and torturing dozens of men who were suspected to be gay. This has been called Chechnya's "anti-gay purge".


title: Magomed Tushayev

text: He was killed by soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine. This was during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. His death was confirmed by the Ukranian news agency and the office of the Ukranian President.


title: Tamerlane

text: Timur (Emir Timur) or Tamerbeg (9 April 1336 – 17 February 1405) was a Turco-Mongol conqueror in the 14th century who is regarded as one of history's greatest military leaders and strategists. He founded the Timurid Empire in 1370. The empire was large and included Transoxiana, parts of Turkestan, Afghanistan, Persia, Syria, Qurdistan, Baghdad, Georgia and Asia Minor. He successfully conquered southern Russia and parts of India. He invaded Delhi in 1398. He called himself ""Sword of Islam"". He is also known to have invented the Tamerlane Chess.


title: Tamerlane

text: Not related to Genghis Khan but claiming to be his successor, he caused the death of thousands of people. Timur is considered the last of the great nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe and the wider Central Asia. His empire led to the Gunpowder Empires in the 1500s and 1600s, most notably the Mughal Empire of India.


title: Tamerlane

text: His real name is "Tīmūr bin Taraghay Barlas". He is also known by these names: Temur, Taimur, Timur Lenk, Timur-i Leng, Temur-e Lang, Amir Timur, Aqsaq Timur, and Tamburlaine.


title: Tamerlane

text: He began his military career after conquering Movarounnahr (now Uzbekistan) through various political betrayals and military campaigns. In allegiance with other rulers in the area, he spent the next ten years fighting to gain territory, supporting the Khan empire against the Russians and defeating many large, imposing armies.


title: Tamerlane

text: But this was only the beginning. In 1383, Tamerlane began conquering Persia, challenging several rival dynasties in an effort to preserve his empire and expand his territory.


title: Tamerlane

text: After securing the majority of eastern Persia and defeating a major Mongol king, Tokhtamysh, Tamerlane and his army occupied Moscow for a year. During his time of absence from Persia, major revolts broke out. So he repressed them. Knowing his home territory of Samarkand was being handled by his military forces, Tamerlane then attacked India. He crossed the Indus River in 1398 and marched his army into Delhi where he reduced much of the city, an event that would cause a great setback for the region. As a result of this conquest, he left the territory with an immense quantity of spoil, using 90 captured elephants to carry treasure and stones from quarries to erect a mosque in his homeland.


title: Tamerlane

text: In 1399, Tamerlane organized a new military expedition to attack the sultan of Egypt for territory infringement and marching on Syria, he stormed and sacked the city of Aleppo. In 1401, his army occupied the city of Damascus. He then moved on to storm Baghdad that same year and massacred 20,000 of its citizens, destroying all of its buildings and significant monuments in the process.


title: Tamerlane

text: Timur and his army of 200,000 soldiers traveled through deep snow and frozen rivers toward China, eventually stopping in what is now Kazakhstan for a rest. Timur caught a cold and died on the journey. The trip to China stopped, and his body was taken home to Samarkand where it was buried beneath the dome of the Gur Amir mausoleum in a steel coffin under a slab of black jade six feet long. On the stone was inscribed, "“This is the resting place of the illustrious and merciful monarch, the most great sultan, the most mighty warrior, Lord Timur, Conqueror of the World.”"


title: Two-nation theory

text: The two-nation theory (Urdu: دو قومی نظریہ "do qaumī nazariya") is the basis of the creation of Pakistan. The two-nation theory in its simplest way means that cultural, political, religious, economic and social dissimilarities between the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims of the Subcontinent. These differences of outlook, in fact, were greatly instrumental in giving rise to two distinct political ideologies which were responsible for the partition of the sub-continent into two independent states. The two-nation theory was a founding principle of the Pakistan Movement (i.e. the ideology of Pakistan as a Muslim nation-state in South Asia), and the partition of India in 1947.


title: Two-nation theory

text: The ideology that religion is the determining factor in defining the nationality of Indian Muslims and Hindus was postulated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who termed it as the awakening of Muslims for the creation of Pakistan. As a consequence, it spawned creation of many Hindu nationalist organisations, with causes including working towards making India a similar state for the majority of Hindus residing there.


title: Two-nation theory

text: There are varying interpretations of the two-nation theory, based on whether the two postulated nationalities can coexist in one territory or not, with radically different implications. One interpretation argued for sovereign autonomy, including the right to secede, for Muslim-majority areas of the Indian subcontinent, but without any transfer of populations (i.e. Hindus and Muslims would continue to live together). A different interpretation contends that Hindus and Muslims constitute "two distinct and frequently antagonistic ways of life and that therefore they cannot coexist in one nation." In this version, a transfer of populations (i.e. the total removal of Hindus from Muslim-majority areas and the total removal of Muslims from Hindu-majority areas) is a desirable step towards a complete separation of two incompatible nations that "cannot coexist in a harmonious relationship".


title: Two-nation theory

text: Opposition to the theory has come from two sources. The first is the concept of a single Indian nation, of which Hindus and Muslims are two intertwined communities. Even after the formation of Pakistan, debates on whether Muslims and Hindus are distinct nationalities or not continued in India. The second source of opposition is the concept that while Indians are not one nation, neither are the Muslims or Hindus of the subcontinent, and it is instead the relatively homogeneous provincial units of the subcontinent which are true nations and deserving of sovereignty across the subcontinent.


title: Periodic table

text: The 'periodic table' is a table that puts all known chemical elements in a specific order. Elements that has similar characteristics are often put near each other. In the table, the elements are placed in the order of their atomic numbers starting with the lowest number of one, hydrogen. The atomic number of an element is the same as the number of protons in that particular nucleus of an atom. In the periodic table the elements are arranged into "periods" and "groups." A row of elements across the table is called a "period". Each period has a number; from 1 to 8. Period 1 has only 2 elements in it: hydrogen and helium. Period 2 and Period 3 both have 8 elements. Other periods are longer. Elements in a period have consecutive atomic numbers.


title: Periodic table

text: A column of elements down the table is called a "group". There are 18 groups in the standard periodic table. Each group has a number: from 1 to 18. Elements in a group have electrons arranged in similar ways, according to the number of valency electrons, which gives them similar chemical properties (they behave in similar ways). For example, group 18 is known as the noble gases because they are all gases and they do not combine with other atoms.


title: Periodic table

text: There are two systems of group numbers; one using Arabic numerals (1,2,3) and the other using Roman numerals (I, II, III). The Roman numeral names were used in most of the 20th century. In 1990 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) decided to use the new system with Arabic numerals, to replace the two old group systems that used Roman numerals.


title: Periodic table

text: The periodic table has been used by chemists to observe patterns and relationships between elements. There are 3 main groups in the Periodic Table; metals, metalloids, and nonmetals. For example, elements to the bottom and far left of the table are the most metallic, and elements on the top right are the least metallic. (e.g. cesium is much more metallic than helium). There are also many other patterns and relationships.


title: Periodic table

text: The periodic table was invented by the Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev (18341907). In his honor, element 101 was named after him, mendelevium.


title: Periodic table

text: The version of the periodic table shown above is the one most used. Other widespread versions are shown below:


title: Human penis

text: The human penis is a male body part found on the outside of the body. It is used for urination and for sexual reproduction. The main sexual function of the penis is to be inserted into a female's vagina and deliver semen which may cause pregnancy. This activity is called sexual intercourse.


title: Human penis

text: There are many slang words for "penis". They include "dick", "cock", and "schlong". A euphemism for "penis" is "male member".


title: Human penis

text: The human penis exits the abdomen above the scrotum and hangs freely outside the body. The main visible part is called the shaft.


title: Human penis

text: The human penis is made up of three rod-shaped tissues. It has two corpora cavernosa (special pieces of muscle) next to each other and a corpus spongiosum (spongy muscle) between them.


title: Human penis

text: The end of the corpus spongiosum forms the glans penis. The glans penis is covered by the foreskin in uncircumcised males. The rounded base of the glans is called the corona. The area on the bottom of the penis, where the foreskin is attached, is known as the frenulum of prepuce.


title: Human penis

text: The urethra, the tube where urine and semen travel through, runs down the corpus spongiosum (spongy tissue), and opens at the tip of the penis. The opening is called urinary meatus. Sperm are made in the testes (ball-like organs) and stored in the epididymis (layer of tissue) around the testes. During ejaculation, sperm are pushed up the vas deferens. Fluids are added by the seminal vesicles, the prostate gland and the bulbourethral glands to make semen.


title: Human penis

text: A penis can become erect if a male is sexually aroused (or sometimes during sleep, even though there is no sexual stimulation). In an erection, the penis fills with blood. The blood makes the penis become longer, thicker and harder. Veins taking blood away from the penis get smaller, so less blood is taken through. Arteries bringing blood to the penis get wider, bringing more blood to the penis.


title: Human penis

text: Ejaculation is when semen is pushed from the penis. It usually happens during an orgasm. Males can ejaculate during sexual intercourse or by masturbation.


title: Human penis

text: In reproductive sexual intercourse between a male and female, the erect penis is inserted into the vagina and moved in and out. The vagina places pressure on the penis, which can cause the male to have an orgasm and ejaculate into the vagina, causing insemination.


title: Human penis

text: Other forms of sex, like anal and oral sex, can also cause stimulation, and therefore orgasm and ejaculation. In masturbation, a male can stimulate the penis and other sensitive areas of the body, such as the scrotum, by rubbing the genital area. Ejaculation may also happen during sleep (called a 'wet dream'). A male must have started puberty before he can ejaculate. During orgasm, muscles push semen from the penis. Semen moves through the urethra and comes out of the hole at the tip of the penis.


title: Human penis

text: The length and thickness of the penis is different for different people. The size of a soft penis (not erect) is much smaller than when it is erect. Some penises grow more when they get hard than other penises. In most cases, whether a penis is big or small, it can still be used for sex. It averages out to be around 3 to 6 inches long when not erect. The average size of an erect human penis is between 13 – 16 cm (5.1– 6 in). The average circumference of a penis is 12.3 cm (4.85 in) when fully erect. The penis grows bigger during puberty. At the start of puberty, the average length of the penis is . The penis reaches adult size about 5 years later. A study done in 1996 found the mean length of an adult man's penis is when it is not erect. The average length of an erect penis is about .


title: Human penis

text: The foreskin is a fold of skin that covers the end of the penis. Cutting off the foreskin is called circumcision. The foreskin is connected to the head of the penis. During circumcision, the foreskin is removed from the penis. Circumcision is usually performed on infant males for medical, religious like Jews and Muslims or cultural reasons in the USA, Philippines and South Korea.


title: Human penis

text: Some males have the foreskin cut off when they are adults because they have problems with their foreskin. Some males have the foreskin cut off because they want to change how their penis looks. Few boys are born without a foreskin or with a very short foreskin, called aposthia, naturally circumcised.


title: Human penis

text: In common speech, you can say that someone is "cut" or "uncut", meaning circumcised or not circumcised .


title: Human penis

text: In some religions, babies and young boys have their foreskin cut off. This is expected in Islam and Judaism. It is not required according to Christianity. In Judaism, infant males are required to have their foreskin removed as a sign of the covenant (ancient promise) made with God.


title: Human penis

text: Penile skin is often slightly darker than skin in surrounding areas. This is due to a higher concentration of melanocytes in genital skin tissue. The tip (glans) of the penis is usually pink or red color even if the penis shaft skin is dark. If the man is not circumcised, the tip is usually covered by the foreskin. The foreskin is about the same color as the skin on the shaft of the penis.


title: Human penis

text: If a man's penis skin changes color and he doesn't know why, he should go to a doctor. He could have an infection, diabetes or cancer. A sunburn on the penis can happen quickly. If a man is outside without clothes, he will get a sun tan. That is normal. Too much sun causes a sunburn. Doctors say to use sunscreen (sun cream) before and after nude swimming. A sunburn can happen in a few minutes on a very sunny day.


title: Human penis

text: Since the oldest cultures the penis has assumed a strong importance as a symbol of fertility used also in religious ceremonies to propitiate the reproductive capacity of men and beasts. For example, in Roman paganism the god Priapus is characterized by a huge penis.


title: Planck constant

text: The Planck constant (Planck's constant) says how much the energy of a photon increases, when the frequency of its electromagnetic wave increases by 1 (In SI Units). It is named after the physicist Max Planck. The Planck constant is a fundamental physical constant. It is written as h.


title: Planck constant

text: The Planck constant has dimensions of physical action: energy multiplied by time, or momentum multiplied by distance. In SI units, the Planck constant is expressed in joule seconds (J⋅s) or (N⋅m⋅s) or (kg⋅m⋅s).


title: Planck constant

text: In SI Units the Planck constant is exactly J·s (by definition). Scientists have used this quantity to calculate measurements like the Planck length and the Planck time.


title: Planck constant

text: Between 1670 and 1900 scientists discussed the nature of light. Some scientists believed that light consisted of many millions of tiny particles. Other scientists believed that light was a wave.


title: Planck constant

text: In 1678, Christiaan Huygens wrote the book "Traité de la lumiere" ("Treatise on light"). He believed that light was made up of waves. He said that light could not be made up of particles because light from two beams do not bounce off each other.


title: Planck constant

text: In 1672, Isaac Newton wrote the book "Opticks". He believed that light was made up of red, yellow and blue particles which he called corpusles. Newton explained this by his "two prism experiment". The first prism broke light up into different colours. The second prism merged these colours back into white light.


title: Planck constant

text: During the 18th century, Newton's theory was given the most attention. In 1803, Thomas Young described the "double-slit experiment". In this experiment, light going through two narrow slits interferes with itself. This causes a pattern which shows that light is made up of waves. For the rest of the nineteenth century, the wave theory of light was given the most attention. In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell developed equations that described electromagnetic radiation as waves.


title: Planck constant

text: The theory of electromagnetic radiation treats light, radio waves, microwaves and many other types of wave as the same thing except that they have different wavelengths. The wavelength of the light we can see with our eyes is roughly between 400 and 600 nm. The wavelength of radio waves varies from 10 m to 1500 m and the wavelength of microwaves is about 2 cm. In a vacuum, all electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. The frequency of the electromagnetic wave is given by:


title: Planck constant

text: All warm things give off thermal radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation. For most things on Earth this radiation is in the infra-red range, but something very hot (1000 °C or more), gives off visible radiation, that is, light. In the late 1800's many scientists studied the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation from black-body radiators at different temperatures.


title: Planck constant

text: Lord Rayleigh first published the basics of the Rayleigh-Jeans law in 1900. The theory was based on the Kinetic theory of gasses. Sir James Jeans published a more complete theory in 1905. The law relates the quantity and wavelength of electromagnetic energy given off by a black body radiator at different temperatures. The equation describing this is:


title: Planck constant

text: For long-wavelength radiation, the results predicted by this equation corresponded well with practical results obtained in a laboratory. However, for short wavelengths (ultraviolet light) the difference between theory and practice were so large that it earned the nickname "the ultra-violet catastrophe".


title: Planck constant

text: in 1895 Wien published the results of his studies into the radiation from a black body. His formula was:


title: Planck constant

text: This formula worked well for short wavelength electromagnetic radiation, but did not work well with long wavelengths.


title: Planck constant

text: In 1900 Max Planck published the results of his studies. He tried to develop an expression for black-body radiation expressed in terms of wavelength by assuming that radiation consisted of small quanta and then to see what happened if the quanta were made infinitely small. (This is a standard mathematical approach). The expression was:


title: Planck constant

text: If the wavelength of light is allowed to become very large, then it can be shown that the Raleigh-Jeans and the Planck relationships are almost identical.


title: Planck constant

text: The values are close to the modern day accepted values of and respectively. The Planck law agrees well with the experimental data, but its full significance was only appreciated several years later.


title: Planck constant

text: It turns out that electrons are dislodged by the photoelectric effect if light reaches a threshold frequency. Below this no electrons can be emitted from the metal. In 1905 Albert Einstein published a paper explaining the effect. Einstein proposed that a beam of light is not a wave propagating through space, but rather a collection of discrete wave packets (photons), each with energy. Einstein said that the effect was due to a photon striking an electron. This demonstrated the particle nature of light.


title: Planck constant

text: Einstein also found that electromagnetic radiation with a long wavelength had no effect. Einstein said that this was because the "particles" did not have enough energy to disturb the electrons.


title: Planck constant

text: Planck suggested that the energy of each photon was related to the photon frequency by the Planck constant. This could be written mathematically as:


title: Planck constant

text: Planck received the Nobel Prize in 1918 in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta. In 1921 Einstein received the Nobel Prize for linking the Planck constant to the photoelectric effect.


title: Planck constant

text: In 1913 Niels Bohr published the Bohr model of the structure of an atom. Bohr said that the angular momentum of the electrons going around the nucleus can only have certain values. These values are given by the equation


title: Planck constant

text: The Bohr model of the atom can be used to calculate the energy of electrons at each level. Electrons will normally fill up the lowest numbered states of an atom. If the atom receives energy from, for example, an electric current, electrons will be excited into a higher state. The electrons will then drop back to a lower state and will lose their extra energy by giving off a photon. Because the energy levels have specific values, the photons will have specific energy levels. Light emitted in this way can be split into different colours using a prism. Each element has its own pattern. The pattern for neon is shown alongside.


title: Planck constant

text: In 1927 Werner Heisenberg published the uncertainty principle. The principle states that it is not possible to make a measurement without disturbing the thing being measured. It also puts a limit on the minimum disturbance caused by making a measurement.


title: Planck constant

text: In the macroscopic world these disturbances make very little difference. For example, if the temperature of a flask of liquid is measured, the thermometer will absorb a small amount of energy as it heats up. This will cause a small error in the final reading, but this error is small and not important.


title: Planck constant

text: In quantum mechanics things are different. Some measurements are made by looking at the pattern of scattered photons. One such example is Compton scattering. If both the position and momentum of a particle is being measured, the uncertainty principle states that there is a trade-off between the accuracy with which the momentum is measured and the accuracy with which the position is measured. The equation that describes this trade-off is:


title: Planck constant

text: In the electric circuit shown on the right, the voltage drop across the light emitting diode (LED) depends on the material of the LED. For silicon diodes the drop is 0.6 V. However for LEDs it is between 1.8 V and 2.7 V. This information enables a user to calculate the Planck constant.


title: Planck constant

text: When the electron decays back again, it emits one photon of light. The energy of the photon is given by


title: Planck constant

text: the same equation used in the photoelectric effect. If these equations are combined, the wavelength of light and the voltage are related by


title: Planck constant

text: Since its discovery, measurements of h have become much better. Planck first quoted the value of h to be erg·sec. This value is within 5% of the current value.


title: Planck constant

text: As of 3 March 2014, the best measurements of h in SI units is  J·s. The equivalent figure in cgs units is  erg·sec. The relative uncertainty of h is .


title: Planck constant

text: The reduced Planck constant (ħ) is a value that is sometimes used in quantum mechanics. It is defined by


title: Planck constant

text: Planck units are sometimes used in quantum mechanics instead of SI. In this system the reduced Planck constant has a value of 1, so the value of the Planck constant is 2π.


title: Planck constant

text: Plancks constant can now be measured with very high precision. This has caused the BIPM to consider a new definition for the kilogram. The international prototype kilogram is no longer used to define the kilogram. Instead the BIPM defines the Planck constant to have an exact value. Scientists use this value and the definitions of the metre and the second to define the kilogram.


title: Planck constant

text: Here, formula_12 is the permeability of free space, formula_13 is the speed of light, formula_14 is the electric charge of electron, formula_15 is the Bohr's radius, and formula_16 is the frequency of revolution of the electron in a hydrogen atom formula_17. When these constant values are substituted to the theoretical Planck constant, the theoretical Planck constant value is exactly equal to the experimental value.


title: Planck constant

text: The Planck's constant elementary formula in terms of proton-to-electron mass ratio, the charge of electron, speed of light and vacuum permittivity is derived in. It is expressed as follows:


title: Planck constant

text: where formula_19 is the elementary charge of an electron, formula_20 the mass of a proton, formula_21the mass of an electron, formula_22 the vacuum permittivity, and formula_13 the speed of light.


title: Talent (measurement)

text: A talent (Latin: "talentum", from Ancient Greek: "scale, balance") is an ancient unit of mass; it corresponded generally to the mass of water in the volume of an amphora, i.e. a one-foot cube.


title: Talent (measurement)

text: The Babylonians and Sumerians had a system in which there were 60 shekels in a mina and 60 minas in a talent (in Ancient Greece one talent was 26 kg of silver). The Roman talent consisted of 100 libra (pounds) which were smaller in magnitude than the mina.


title: Talent (measurement)

text: When used as a measure of money, it refers to a talent-weight of gold or of silver. The gold talent is reported as weighing roughly the same as a person, and so perhaps 50 kg (>110 lb avoirdupois). Some authorities say that the talent typically weighed about 33 kg (>72 lb) varying from 20 to 40 kg. In June, 2018, the international price of gold was about US $41,155.69 per kilogram. One gram costs about $38. At this price, a talent (33 kg) would be worth about $1,400,116.57. Similarly, in February 2016, the price of silver was about $15 per troy ounce or about 50 cents per gram, so a 33 kg silver talent would be worth about $16,500. Thus when we read that King Auletes of Egypt paid Gaius Julius Caesar the sum of 6,000 talents of gold to grant him the status of a "Friend and Ally of the Roman People," this amount would be worth about $8,400,000,000 USD today! These estimates are only rough values, because they are based on modern estimates.The value of silver in comparison to gold drastically changed. This is because of the output of the Spanish silver mines in the New World. In ancient times the same amount of silver was often worth more than gold. The estimates do not account for the less technical mining ability of the time, nor that there were still native deposits available. Later in Roman history, during the medieval Byzantine period, the emperor Basil II was said to have stockpiled the legendary amount of 200,000 talents of gold which, in modern terms, would be worth approximately $280,023,314,760 USD. At any rate, he did save enough money that the Byzantine government was able to remit all taxes paid during the final two years of his reign.


title: Talent (measurement)

text: Another way to calculate the modern equivalent to a talent is from its use in estimating military pay. During the Peloponnesian war in Ancient Greece, a talent was the amount of silver needed to pay the crew of a trireme for one month. Hellenistic mercenaries were commonly paid one drachma for every day of service, which was a good salary in the post-Alexander (III) days. 6,000 drachma made a talent.


title: Talent (measurement)

text: The talent as a unit of coinage is mentioned in the New Testament in Jesus' . One talent was an incredible amount of money.


title: Portuguese language

text: Portuguese () is a Romance language. It came from Galician-Portuguese, which was first spoken in Northwestern Iberia. It then spread south and split. During the colonial era, Portuguese was also spread to Brazil and other parts of the world.


title: Portuguese language

text: The Portuguese language is the third-most spoken western language (after English and Spanish). There are about 240 million native speakers, including the people of Portugal, Brazil, and Cape Verde ("Cabo Verde"). It is also an official language of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique ("Moçambique"), Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé and Príncipe ("São Tomé e Príncipe"), which have Portuguese as the "lingua franca," but native languages are also spoken. It is also an official language in East Timor and Macau.


title: Portuguese language

text: Also, some enclaves in Asia, such as Goa and Daman and Diu, in India; Flores, Indonesia; and Malacca, Malaysia, have Portuguese-speakers, and it is a minority language in Venezuela, Canada, Uruguay, Namibia, and the United States.


title: Portuguese language

text: Portuguese and English have words that mean the same and are similar as well. The words came from the same languages (usually Latin, Greek or French).


title: Portuguese language

text: Some English words come from Portuguese, such as tank ("tanque"), cacao ("cacau"), marmalade (marmelada from "marmelo" "quince"), caramel, molasses, mosquito, cobra, breeze (brisa), albino, coconut, zebra, pagoda, Mandarin, buccaneer, fetish, tapioca and commando.


title: Portuguese language

text: The Portuguese word "parentes" is similar to the English word "parents", but it means "relatives", and the Portuguese word to mean "parents" is "pais".


title: Portuguese language

text: Portuguese is the official language of all countries of the CPLP ("Comunidade dos países de língua portuguesa", "Community of Portuguese Language Countries"). The Portuguese-speaking countries have more than 240 million people across the world.


title: Portuguese language

text: The CPLP was formed in 1996 with seven countries: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. East Timor joined in 2002.


title: Portuguese language

text: The CPLP nations speak Portuguese with different accents. In some regions of Brazil (the country has 81% of the world's Portuguese-speakers), "tu"'("you" but used only to family and close friends) is not used as much as in Portugal. Also, regional slang can be found in different areas. The Portuguese Orthographic Agreement of 1990 (Acordo Ortográfico de 1990) tries to get rid of some of the differences in spelling.


title: The end justifies the means

text: The end justifies the means is a phrase of Niccolò Machiavelli. It means that if a goal is morally important enough, any method of getting it is acceptable.


title: The end justifies the means

text: The idea is ancient, but it was not meant to justify unnecessary cruelty. It was part of a political philosophy called consequentialism. The basic idea is that a policy can be judged by its outcome. All modern versions of consequentialism have to deal with the limitations necessary to prevent tyrants abusing this idea.


title: World Wide Web

text: The World Wide Web ("WWW" or "The Web") is the part of the Internet that contains websites and webpages. It was invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. Sir Tim Berners-Lee created a new markup language called HTML. Websites are composed of pages linked by hypertext links that are written in HTML.


title: World Wide Web

text: The software to see the World Wide Web is called a web browser. One also needs a connection to the Internet.


title: World Wide Web

text: Many companies nowadays offer website hosting allowing one to make websites that can be displayed on the World Wide Web, including a custom domain (www.stuff.com) site.


title: World Wide Web

text: While working at CERN in 1989, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web. He was a computer scientist from England. Tim Berners-Lee was a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at Oxford University and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


title: Vacuum tube

text: A vacuum tube, also called a valve in British English, is an electronic device used in many older model radios, television sets, and amplifiers to control electric current flow. The cathode is heated, as in a light bulb, so it will emit electrons. This is called thermionic emission. The anode is the part that accepts the emitted electrons. The device may have other parts. Vacuum tubes must be hot to work. Most are made of glass, thus are fragile and can break. Vacuum tubes were used in the first computers like the ENIAC, which were large and need much work to continue operating.


title: Vacuum tube

text: Although the vacuum tube was invented by John Ambrose Fleming in 1904, it was Thomas Edison who discovered the "Edison effect" in 1883 which states that electricity does not necessarily need a solid material to move through; it can move through gas or vacuums as well.


title: Vacuum tube

text: John Ambrose Fleming invented the first vacuum tube, the diode, in 1904. Lee De Forest invented the "audion" in 1906 (which was improved by others as the triode in 1908) and used in the first telephone amplifiers. Many other kinds were invented for various purposes.


title: Vacuum tube

text: The transistor became cheaper in the 1960s and was much smaller, worked on lower voltages, and used less power. In addition, unlike vacuum tubes, they were much less likely to be damaged by being dropped and had extremely long life. Eventually, they were also much cheaper than glass vacuum tubes. At this time, most radios, television sets, and amplifiers began using transistors instead. High powered electronics such as broadcasting transmitters were transistorized more slowly. Television receivers continued using the cathode ray tube until the mid-2000s.


title: Vacuum tube

text: In the 21st century, vacuum tubes are rarely used in common electronic equipment. Many devices today rely on the transistor over the vacuum tube. Some devices that still use the vacuum tube, however, include:


title: Gucci

text: It was started by Guccio Gucci (1881 – 1953) in Florence in 1909. Gucci is seen as one of the most famous, successful, and easily recognizable fashion brands in the world. Gucci is now owned by the French conglomerate company, Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR).


title: Gucci

text: BusinessWeek magazine says that Gucci made more than US$7 billion in 2006, and was 46th in the magazine's yearly "Top 100 Brands". For this reason Gucci is the second biggest selling fashion brand after LVMH. Most importantly Gucci is the biggest selling Italian brand in the world. Gucci has about 425 shops in the world and it sells its products to other shops by franchisees and department stores.


title: Gucci

text: Gucci was started in 1906 by Guccio Gucci. In 1938, Gucci grew bigger, and a small shop opened in Rome. Guccio Gucci designed many of the company's famous clothes. In 1947, Gucci made the bamboo-handle handbag, which is still used. In the 1950s, Gucci also made the striped webbing (a type of material), and the suede and metal moccasin shoes.


title: Gucci

text: Guccio Gucci's wife, Aida Calvelli had a large family, with six children, but only their sons (Vasco, Aldo, Ugo, and Rodolfo), not their daughters help lead the company. After Guccio's death in 1953 , Aldo helped lead the company to being a major fashion shop in more than one country, opening the company’s first small shops in London, Paris, and New York. Even in Gucci’s younger years, the family was well known for its arguments. Arguments about inheritances, stock holdings, and day-to-day operations of the shops often divided the family, and caused alliances to be made. Gucci grew in other countries. Gucci decided to grow a lot in East Asia in the late 1960s, opening shops in Hong Kong (China), Tokyo (Japan), and Korea. At that time, the company also made its famous GG logo (Guccio Gucci's initials), and the Flora silk scarf (worn most by Hollywood actress Grace Kelly), and the "Jackie O shoulder" bag, which was made famous by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.


title: Gucci

text: Gucci stayed as one of the biggest luxury clothes companies in the world, until the late 1970s, when some bad business decisions and family arguments almost made the company bankrupt. At the time, the brothers 'Aldo' and 'Rodolfo' controlled equal 50% shares of the company, but contributed less to the company than Guccio Gucci and all his sons did. In 1979, 'Aldo' made the 'Gucci Accessories Collection', or 'GAC', which was meant to increase sales for the Gucci Parfums sector, which his sons controlled. GAC sold small accessories, such as cosmetic bags, lighters, and pens, which were cheaper than the other items in the company’s accessories catalogue. Aldo relegated control of Parfums to his son Roberto in an effort to weaken Rodolfo’s control of the overall operations of the company.


title: Gucci

text: Aldo Gucci grew into new markets, such as an agreement with American Motors Corporation (AMC), so that in 1972 AMC Hornet small "Sportabout" car became one of the first American cars to give a special luxury made by a famous fashion designer. The Gucci cars had striped green, red, and buff material inside, as well as the Gucci's logos and outside color selections.


title: Gucci

text: The "Gucci Accessories Collection" was popular, but it brought the Gucci strength down. After a few years, the "Parfums section" started to sell better than the "Accessories section". The newly-made wholesaling business brought the once-exclusive brand to over a thousand stores in the United States alone with the GAC line, deteriorating the brand’s standing with fashionable customers. "In the 1960s and 1970s," writes Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, "Gucci had been at the pinnacle of chic, thanks to icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jacqueline Onassis. But by the 1980s, Gucci had lost its appeal, becoming a tacky airport brand."


title: Weather

text: Weather is the day-to-day or hour-to-hour change in the atmosphere. Weather includes wind, lightning, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes (also known as twisters), rain, hail, snow, and lots more. Energy from the Sun affects the weather too.


title: Weather

text: Changes in weather can affect our mood and life. We wear different clothes and do different things in different weather conditions. We choose different foods in different seasons.


title: Weather

text: Weather stations around the world measure different parts of weather. Ways to measure weather are wind speed, wind direction, temperature and humidity. People try to use these measurements to make weather forecasts for the future. These people are scientists that are called "meteorologists". They use computers to build large mathematical models to follow weather trends.


title: Weather

text: Severe weather can hurt people and their property. It can also just be a bother. Some examples of severe weather are:


title: Weather

text: Weather happens because different parts of the Earth get different amounts of heat from the Sun. This makes different climates. The tropics get the most heat because the Sun shines straight down on them, while the poles get the least heat because the Sun shines on them from a low angle. Warmer air is lighter than cooler air and rises higher in the sky by convection.


title: Weather

text: The air always has some water mixed with it. This is called humidity. When it cools, the water can change from a gas to a liquid through condensation. Then the water can fall from the sky as rain or snow. After the air rises, it gets colder and goes back towards the ground. Because the air lost its water before, it is dry when it comes back to the ground. When two air masses of different temperatures meet, this is called a warm front or cold front. The ways that the air moves around the Earth are called atmospheric circulation.


title: Kerala

text: Kerala is a state in the Republic of India. It is in the south-west of the country. The west coast of the state is on the Arabian Sea. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are to the east.


title: Kerala

text: The capital city of the state is Thiruvananthapuram, even though the city of Kochi is more densely populated. The area of Kerala is 15,005 mi (38,863 km), which is bigger than Bhutan but smaller than Switzerland. In traditional Indian geography, it is part of South India.


title: Kerala

text: There are 14 districts in Kerala. They are Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kannur, Kasaragod, Kollam, Kottayam, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, and Wayanad.


title: Kerala

text: People in Kerala speak Malayalam. More than 90% of the people can read the language. A mix of English and Malayalam is called Manglish. Manglish is used by people in Kerala, who can speak it very easily and fluently.


title: Kerala

text: Kerala is known for traditional arts and people enjoy traditional, percussion-filled music. They also enjoy tribal ceremonies, martial arts, and sports such as soccer, cricket, and badminton. Kerala is popular for Kalaripayattu, a martial arts form and Kathakali, a Hindu performance art. Most of the people have access to the internet, TVs, newspapers, and books. The average amount of reading per week is about seven hours. The literacy rate is approximately 99.7%.


title: Kerala

text: The most famous festivals held by Keralites are Onam, the harvest festival and Vishu, the Malayalam Calendar New Year. In addition to these, temples as well as churches hold festivals in several days of the year. A common tradition in all these festivals is the hosting of the holy flag, which is brought down on the last day of the festival. Some temple festivals are called poorams, and the most famous one among these is 'Thrissur Pooram'. The main attractions of poorams are firecrackers, traditional dance forms like 'Theyyam, Kathakali, Chakyar Koothu etc.'. Festivals are locally known as "utsavams" .


title: Kerala

text: Kerala is one of the biggest tourist attractions in India, both for Indians as well as foreigners. It has beaches, hill stations and extensive backwaters. Kerala is also known for its diverse nature.


title: Hard and soft drugs

text: Drugs that act on the nervous system, such as the brain, and impact a person's mental state may be loosely and informally classified into categories. The following categories are not fully agreed upon globally:


title: Hard and soft drugs

text: All drugs–nicotine, cocaine, marijuana and others–affect the brain’s “reward” circuit, which is part of the limbic system. This area of the brain affects instinct and mood. Drugs target this system, which causes large amounts of dopamine—a brain chemical that helps regulate emotions and feelings of pleasure—to flood the brain. This flood of dopamine is what causes a “high.” It's one of the main causes of drug addiction.


title: Hard and soft drugs

text: Although initial drug use may be voluntary, drugs can alter brain chemistry. This can actually change how the brain performs and interfere with a person’s ability to make choices. It can lead to intense cravings and compulsive drug use. Over time, this behavior can turn into a substance dependency or drug and alcohol addiction.


title: Hard and soft drugs

text: Charges involved for hard drugs are usually, but not always, harsher than for soft drugs. Opioid trading and trafficking are treated seriously by the law in many countries due to the potential harm. In the United States, marijuana, or cannabis, is classified as an abusable and highly addictive chemical and is heavily charged on the federal level, even if it goes against scientific evidence or laws varying by state. This is reversed for alcohol, which can cause major dependence and addiction but is normally charged with minimal or no penalty and is sold widely in the western world.


title: Moon

text: The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. We usually see it in the night sky and also during the day. Some other planets also have moons or natural satellites.


title: Moon

text: Our moon is about a quarter the size of the Earth. Because it is far away it looks small, about half a degree wide. The gravity on the moon is one-sixth of the Earth's gravity. It means that something will be one-sixth as heavy on the Moon than on Earth. The Moon is a rocky and dusty place. It moves slowly away from the earth at a rate of 3.8 cm per year, due to the effect of .


title: Moon

text: Because the moon is round, half of it is lit up by the sun. As it goes around (or orbits) the Earth, sometimes the side that people on Earth can see is all lit brightly. Other times only a small part of the side we see is lit. This is because the Moon does not send out its own light. People only see the parts that are being lit by sunlight. These different stages are called Phases of the Moon.


title: Moon

text: It takes the Moon about 29.53 days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes) to complete the cycle, from big and bright to small and dim and back to big and bright. The phase when the Moon passes between the Earth and Sun is called the "new moon". The next phase of the moon is called the "waxing crescent", followed by the "first quarter", "waxing gibbous", then to a full moon. A full Moon occurs when the moon and sun are on opposite sides of the Earth. As the Moon continues its orbit it becomes a "waning gibbous", "third quarter", "waning crescent", and finally back to a new moon. People used the moon to measure time. A month is approximately equal in time to a lunar cycle.


title: Moon

text: The moon always shows the same side to Earth. Astronomers call this phenomenon tidal locking. This means that half of it can never be seen from Earth. The side facing away from Earth is called the far side or dark side of the Moon even though the sun does shine on it—we just never see it lit.


title: Moon

text: Before people stood on the Moon, the United States and the USSR sent robots to the Moon. These robots would orbit the Moon or land on its surface. The robots were the first man-made objects to touch the Moon.


title: Moon

text: Humans finally landed on the Moon on July 21, 1969. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their lunar ship (the "Eagle") on the surface of the moon. Then, as half the world watched him on television, Armstrong climbed down the ladder of the "Eagle" and was the first human to touch the Moon as he said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."


title: Moon

text: Even though their footprints were left on the moon a long time ago, it is likely that they are still there, as there is no wind or rain, making erosion extremely slow. The footprints do not get filled in or smoothed out.


title: Moon

text: More people landed on the moon between 1969 and 1972, when the last spaceship, Apollo 17 visited. Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 was the last person to touch the moon.


title: Moon

text: Because it is smaller, the Moon has less gravity than Earth (only 1/6 of the amount on Earth). So if a person weighs 60 kilograms on Earth, the person would only weigh 10 kilograms on the moon. But even though the Moon's gravity is weaker than the Earth's gravity, it is still there. If a person dropped a ball while standing on the moon, it would still fall down. However, it would fall "much" more slowly. A person who jumped as high as possible on the moon would jump higher than on Earth, but still fall back to the ground. Because the Moon has no atmosphere, there is no air resistance, so a feather will fall as fast as a hammer.


title: Moon

text: Without an atmosphere, the environment is not protected from heat or cold. Astronauts wore spacesuits, and carried oxygen to breathe. The gloves of the spacesuit, were never taken off on the Moon. The suit weighed about as much as the astronaut. The Moon's gravity is weak, so it was not as heavy as on Earth.


title: Moon

text: On the Earth, the sky is blue because the blue rays of the sun bounce off the gases in the atmosphere, making it look like blue light is coming from the sky. But on the moon, because there is no atmosphere, the sky looks black, even in the daytime. There is no atmosphere to protect the moon from the rocks that fall from outer space, and these meteorites crash right into the moon and make wide, shallow holes called craters. The moon has thousands of them. Newer craters gradually wear away the older ones.


title: Moon

text: The giant impact hypothesis is that the Moon was created out of the debris from a collision between the young Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet. This is the favored scientific hypothesis for the formation of the Moon.


title: Moon

text: In 2009 Chandrayaan-1 found a lot of water on the moon. The water is not liquid but is in the form of hydrates and hydroxides. Liquid water cannot exist on the Moon because photodissociation quickly breaks down the molecules. However, from the data received from Chandrayaan-1, liquid surface water may have once existed on the moon.


title: Moon

text: During the Cold War, the United States Army thought about making a military post on the Moon, able to attack targets on Earth. They also considered testing a nuclear weapon on the Moon. The United States Air Force had similar plans. However, both plans were brushed-off as NASA moved from a military to a civilian-based agency.


title: Moon

text: Even though the Soviet Union left remains on the Moon, and the United States left a few flags, no country has control over the Moon. The U.S. and Soviet Union both signed the Outer Space Treaty, which calls the Moon and all of outer space the "province of all mankind". This treaty also banned all use of the military of the Moon, including nuclear weapons tests and military bases.


title: Healthy lifestyle

text: A healthy lifestyle is one which helps to keep and improve people's health and well-being and overcome lots of stress. Many governments and non-governmental organizations work in promoting healthy lifestyles. Healthy living is a lifelong effect. Being healthy includes healthy eating, physical activities, weight management, and stress management.


title: Healthy lifestyle

text: A healthy lifestyle includes a balanced diet. This does not mean cutting out important food groups of your diet or limiting yourself on the amount of calories per day. A well-rounded diet involves eating most food groups in every meal. Meats, dairy, fruits and vegetables are all important components of a meal that will ensure your body is healthy.


title: Portugal

text: Portugal is a country in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe and part of the Mediterranean. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. Its capital city is Lisbon It has been a member of the European Union since 1986. Portugal was under a dictatorship between 1926 and 1974 called Estado Novo. The dictatorship of Estado Novo was ended by a peaceful revolution called Carnation Revolution. The Portuguese economy has since prospered but was hit hard by the 2007-2008 recession.


title: Portugal

text: It once had an empire called the Portuguese Empire, and was a powerful maritime nation from 1500s–1800s, the 10th-largest empire with a maximum land area of 10.4 million km² which included Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, East Timore, São Tomé and Príncipe, Portuguese Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and even Macau in China (until 2002).


title: Portugal

text: Portugal is a popular holiday destination but is sometimes overlooked in favour of larger countries like France, Spain and Italy. The Algarve region in the south and capital Lisbon are the most popular.


title: Portugal

text: Three groups of islands in the Atlantic Ocean are also part of Portugal: the Azores ("Açores"), Madeira and the Savage Isles ("Ilhas Selvagens"). The Savage Isles are a small group of uninhabited islands, administered by Madeira.


title: Portugal

text: Portugal became its own kingdom in 1139 but was not officially recognized until 1143. Portugal has had links with England since the 1100s by a treaty. The border with Spain has been almost the same since the 13th century. Fishing and trading with other countries were important here.


title: Portugal

text: Portugal was important in the world exploration for two reasons. Henry the Navigator, a prince from Portugal, was very interested in exploration. Inventions in navigation led to a bigger knowledge of geography.


title: Portugal

text: This world exploration began the Portuguese Empire. Portugal was a world power during the 15th and 16th centuries. It tried to colonize Canada in the 16th century. However, it lost a lot of money soon after this. Portugal and Spain were in the Iberian Union from 1580 to 1640. The city of Lisbon was destroyed in an earthquake in 1755. The country was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars. It lost its largest colony, Brazil, in 1822.


title: Portugal

text: In 1910, the Kingdom of Portugal ended and Portugal became a Republic. Eight years after Portugal’s involvement in World War One, a military group took control of the country from the Portuguese First Republic called the 28 May coup d’état. This began a time of rule by authoritarian governments called Ditadura Nacíonal that later became known as Estado Novo. During World War II Portugal remained neutral but friendly to Britain and Spain. In 1974 a peaceful left-wing army coup, called the "Carnation Revolution" had taken place that overthrown the military dictatorship and ended the Portuguese Colonial War. Political prisoners and oppositions of António de Oliveira Salazar were freed. The coup was an important part of Portugal’s transition to democracy and changed the way the country was ran.


title: Portugal

text: The next year, Portugal allowed its colonies in Africa to be on their own sovereignty: Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe.


title: Portugal

text: East Timor in Asia declared itself independent from Portugal on 28 November 1975, and was invaded and occupied by Indonesian forces nine days later.


title: Portugal

text: Some famous Portuguese people are D. Afonso Henriques, Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, Pedro Álvares Cabral, Ferdinand Magellan, Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa, Amália Rodrigues, Álvaro Siza Vieira, Eduardo Souto de Moura.


title: Portugal

text: Luís de Camões wrote the national poem of Portugal. It is called "Os Lusíadas" and was written in 1572.


title: Islamic calendar

text: The Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar () is a calendar. It is used to determine Islamic holidays in most of Islam. It is a lunar calendar: it uses the phases of the Moon (rather the Earth's orbit of the Sun) to count the passing of time. Its year has 12 months of 29 or 30 days, and lasts a total of 354 or 355 days. This means that each year of the Hijri calendar is about 11 days shorter than a solar calendar such as the Gregorian. Islamic years are often called "hijra" years, because the first year of the calendar when the "hijra" occurred, that is when Prophet Muhammad went from Mecca to Medina.


title: Islamic calendar

text: Two Islamic countries (Iran and Afghanistan) use a different calendar, the Solar Hijri Calendar ("SH").


title: Islamic calendar

text: The timing of the months in the Islamic calendar is determined by direct observation of the Moon. A new month can only begin after a "waxing crescent Moon" is observed shortly after sunset. The "waxing crescent Moon" is the phase of the Moon which starts right after a New Moon. A lunar month (one new moon to the next) lasts a little over 29.5 days. For convenience, a month is the Islamic calendar is either 29 days or 30 days, one after the other. So a 29-day month is followed by a 30-day month (29+30 is the same as 29.5+29.5). In most years, that means that a year of 12 calendar months last 354 days. But that "a little over" is 44 minutes every month so, to keep the calendar in step with reality, an extra day is needed nearly every third year, so these years are 355 days long.


title: Islamic calendar

text: Whether or not the first crescent moon is actually visible differs by location. For desert communities, cloud-cover is rarely a problem but that is not true for people who live in the rain forest. One option is to use the tabular Islamic calendar, which predicts the moment of waxing crescent moon assuming perfect visibility. This method is used routinely by some Islamic communities but regarded by others as just an aid to securing a successful observation.


title: Sagrada Família

text: The Sagrada Familia (full name ) is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was designed by architect Antoni Gaudi (1852–1926).


title: Sagrada Família

text: Although it is not finished, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In November 2010 it was consecrated (dedicated to a special purpose) and made a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI.


title: Sagrada Família

text: Building of the Sagrada Familia began in 1882. Gaudi started working on it in 1883. He took over the project, and changed it with his ideas on architecture and engineering.


title: Sagrada Família

text: Gaudi worked on it until he died. At the time of his death in 1926, less than a quarter of the building was finished. The Sagrada Familia's building was slow. It needed private donations (people giving money to it). It was stopped by the Spanish Civil War—only to start again in the 1950s. Building was more than halfway done after 2010. Some of the project's biggest problems still remain.


title: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

text: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious () is an English word, with 34 letters, that was a song with the same title in the Disney musical movie "Mary Poppins". The song was written by the Sherman Brothers, and sung by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. It also appears in the stage show version of Mary Poppins.


title: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

text: The writers of the "Oxford English Dictionary" think that the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was first used in the 1940s. The word is a compound word, and said by Richard Lederer in his book "Crazy English" to be made up of these words: super- "above", cali- "beauty", fragilistic- "delicate", expiali- "to atone", and -docious "educable", with all of these parts combined meaning "Atoning for educability through delicate beauty." According to the movie, in which the word became widely used, the word is "something to say when you have nothing to say". However, a lot of people think the word means "extraordinarily good" or "wonderful" because all mentions of the word in the movie can be thought of as good.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots are birds of the order Psittaciformes. There are about 372 species in 86 genera. They are found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The greatest diversity of parrots is found in South America and Australasia.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots are intelligent birds. They have relatively large brains, they can learn, and they can use simple tools. Because some species have the ability to make sounds like human voices and have plumages with bright colors, many species are kept as pets. This includes some endangered and protected species.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots have a compact body with a large head and a short neck. Their beaks are short, strong and curved. The two parts of the beak are very strong and used to break fruits and seeds. The tongue is large and strong. Most parrots can fly, though some lost their powers of flight after they came to live on oceanic islands. The kakapo is an example.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots have strong legs, and clawed zygodactyl feet (with two toes facing forward and two toes facing back) that are very useful to climb up trees. Many parrots are vividly coloured, and some are multi-coloured. The plumage of cockatoos ranges from mostly white to mostly black, with a mobile crest of feathers on the tops of their heads. Most parrots exhibit little or no sexual dimorphism.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots are variably-sized. The smallest parrot is the pigmy parrot ("Micropsitta pusio") with an adult weight of and a length of . The hyacinth macaw ("Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus") is longer than any other species of parrot, although half its length is tail.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots eat seeds, nuts, buds and other plant material. A few species sometimes eat animals and carrion (dead animal carcasses), while the lories and lorikeets are specialised for feeding on floral nectar and soft fruits. Almost all parrots nest in tree hollows, and lay white eggs from which hatch altricial (helpless) young.


title: Parrot

text: Parrots are among the most intelligent birds. The ability of some parrots to make sounds like human voices makes them popular as pets.


title: Parrot

text: The capture of wild parrots for the pet trade, as well as hunting, habitat loss and competition from invasive species, has diminished wild populations, with parrots being subjected to more exploitation than any other group of birds. Measures taken to conserve the habitats of some high-profile species have also protected many of the less charismatic species living in the same ecosystems.


title: Parrot

text: Some parrots can live up to 80 years. Many parrots can imitate human speech; they can speak simple words if repeated a few times.


title: Parrot

text: Transposons in the genomes of passerines and parrots are similar, but those in the genomes of other birds are not. This is strong evidence that parrots are the sister group of passerines.


title: Parrot

text: Europe is the origin of the first presumed parrot fossils, which date from about 50 million years ago (mya). The climate there and then was tropical. Several fairly complete skeletons of parrot-like birds have been found in England and Germany. On the whole it seems likely that these are not direct ancestors of the modern parrots, but related lineages which evolved in the northern hemisphere, and which have since died out.


title: Parrot

text: The earliest records of modern parrots date to about 23–20 mya and are also from Europe. Subsequently, the fossil record—again mainly from Europe—consists of bones clearly recognisable as belonging to parrots of modern type. The southern hemisphere does not have nearly as rich a fossil record for this period as the northern, and contains no known parrot-like remains earlier than the early to middle Miocene, around 20 mya. The first unambiguous parrot fossil (as opposed to a parrot-like one) is found in the Miocene. It is an upper jaw, identical that of modern cockatoos.


title: Stone fruit

text: A stone fruit, also called a drupe, is a fruit with a large "stone" inside. The stone is sometimes called the seed, but that is a mistake, as the seed is inside the stone. The stones can also be called a pit. These fruits are edible and used frequently in cooking.


title: Stone fruit

text: A fruit is the matured ovary of a flower. Fruits consist of two main parts: the pericarp, or ovary wall, and the seed(s).


title: Stone fruit

text: The pericarp has three layers: the exocarp (skin/rind), the mesocarp (bulk of the pericarp), and the endocarp (innermost layer).


title: Stone fruit

text: Drupes have a fleshy mesocarp, but a tough endocarp, and of course, a "stone" or "pit" at its center. Drupes typically have only a single seed.


title: Tornado

text: A tornado is a tube of violently spinning center that touches the ground. Wind inside the tornado spins fast, but the actual 'circle' of wind around them is huge. This makes tornadoes very dangerous. Tornadoes are especially dangerous to people in cars or mobile homes and about 60 people are killed by tornadoes every year. The word "tornado" might come from the Spanish word "tronada" (thunderstorm), which comes from the word "tronar" (to thunder).


title: Tornado

text: Tornadoes destroy things. They can tear houses to pieces and often leave people homeless. Tornadoes can be caused by winds that have been going opposite directions with humidity. They are smaller than hurricanes but stronger. Nearly three quarters of the world's tornadoes happen in the United States. However, they can happen anywhere.


title: Tornado

text: Tornadoes mostly happen during strong thunderstorms called super cell storms. They cause a lot of damage to anything in their path. Tornadoes are ranked on the Enhanced Fujita scale, from EF0 to EF5. EF0 is used for tornadoes that cause the least amount of damage, and EF5 is used for tornadoes that cause the most amount of damage.


title: Tornado

text: Tornadoes can happen in nearly any part of the world. In the United States, a tornado has happened in every state. The middle part of the United States is nicknamed "Tornado Alley" because of the number of tornadoes there. A tornado can have wind speeds of over 300 miles per hour (480 km/h). Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across and travel a few miles before disappearing. Other tornado-like phenomena that exist in nature include the gustnado, dust devil, fire whirls, and steam devil; downbursts are frequently confused with tornadoes, though their action is not similar.


title: Tornado

text: A tornado does not necessarily need to be visible; however, the extremely low pressure caused by the high wind speeds and rapid rotation usually causes water vapor in the air to condense into a visible "condensation funnel". The tornado is the vortex of wind, not the condensation cloud.


title: Tornado

text: A single storm may produce multiple tornadoes and mesocyclones. Tornadoes produced from the same storm are referred to as a "tornado family". Sometimes multiple tornadoes from distinct mesocyclones occur at the same time.


title: Tornado

text: Occasionally, several tornadoes are spawned from the same very large storm. If there is no break in their activity, this is considered a "tornado outbreak", although there are various definitions. A period of several successive days with tornado outbreaks in the same general area (spawned by multiple weather systems) is a "tornado outbreak sequence", occasionally called an extended tornado outbreak".


title: Tornado

text: Sometimes, tornadoes happen in groups. 148 tornadoes struck on the same day in April 1974. Many towns in the midwestern United States and Canada were destroyed. More than 300 people died. They were hit by flying wrecks, buried under houses, and thrown by powerful winds. That day, students in Xenia, Ohio were practicing for a play on the auditorium stage. One girl looked out the window and saw the tornado. The students ran into the hall, covering their heads. A few seconds later, all the school buses flew right onto the stage.


title: Tornado

text: A man in another town hid under the couch in his living room. He held onto one couch leg. The tornado struck his house, and winds blew around him. When the tornado left, he was outside. There was no house. The couch had disappeared, and he was only holding onto one couch leg.


title: Tornado

text: The Fujita scale and the Enhanced Fujita Scale rate tornadoes by how much damage they cause. The Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale was an update to the older Fujita scale. The updated scale uses engineered wind estimates and has better damage descriptions. The EF Scale was designed so that a tornado rated on the Fujita scale would get the same numerical rating, and was used in the United States since 2007. An EF0 tornado will probably damage trees but not big buildings, whereas an EF5 tornado can rip buildings off their foundations leaving them destroyed and even damage big skyscrapers.


title: Tornado

text: In the United States, 80% of tornadoes are EF0 and EF1 (T0 through T3) tornadoes. Less than 1% of tornadoes are violent tornadoes (EF4, T8 or stronger).


title: Tornado

text: A "tornado watch" is given when the weather conditions look like a tornado could form. A 'PDS (Particularly Dangerous Situation)' watch is given when a likely tornado outbreak is to start, many strong tornadoes will form in the area, or an ongoing tornado outbreak is in the works in the area. A "tornado warning" is given if somebody has actually seen a tornado or if a tornado 'signature' (usually the storm has a 'hook' or 'U' echo) has shown up on radar. Tornado emergencies are issued in Special Weather Statements or Tornado Warnings saying that a powerful tornado is about to hit an area with a lot of people in it (especially cities in Tornado Alley), a tornado has been spotted, and the tornado is expected to cause deaths.


title: Tornado

text: It is often thought that opening windows will lessen the damage caused by a tornado. While there is a big drop in atmospheric pressure inside a strong tornado, it is unlikely that the pressure drop would be enough to cause the house to explode. Opening windows may actually increase the tornado's damage. A violent tornado can destroy a house whether its windows are open or closed.


title: Tornado

text: Another common misconception is that highway overpasses provide adequate shelter from tornadoes. Due to the Venturi effect, tornadic winds are stronger in the small space of an overpass. In the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak of May 3, 1999, three highway overpasses were directly hit by tornadoes. At each of the three places there was a death, along with many life-threatening injuries. By comparison, during the same tornado outbreak, more than 2000 homes were completely destroyed, with another 7000 damaged, and yet only a few dozen people died in their homes.


title: Tornado

text: There are areas which people believe to be safe from tornadoes, whether by being in a city, near a major river, hill, or mountain, or even protected by supernatural forces. Tornadoes have been known to cross major rivers, climb mountains, hit valleys, and have damaged several city centers. As a general rule, no area is safe from tornadoes, though some areas are more likely to be hit than others.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: There was also an increase of Russian Armed Forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on 21 February 2022. The invasion was condemned (strongly criticised) by many countries. In Russia, many opposition groups formed anti-war protests. Many of the protesters were arrested.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: At about 06:00 Moscow time (UTC+3), Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in eastern Ukraine. Minutes later, missile strikes began at locations across the country, including in the capital Kyiv. The Ukrainian Border Service stated that its border posts with Russia and Belarus were attacked.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: Minutes after Putin's announcement, explosions were heard in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and the Donbas. Ukrainian officials said that Russia landed soldiers in Odessa and Mariupol and launched cruise and ballistic missiles at airfields, military headquarters, and military depots in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. It is the largest attack by one country against another in Europe since World War II.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: President Volodymyr Zelensky said that there would be martial law in Ukraine. Later he ordered the Ukrainian Army to kill as many Russian invaders as possible.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: Moments after the invasion on 24 February, the Ukraine government said that Russia captured Chernobyl and Pripyat. After this, the American government said "credible reports that Russian soldiers are currently holding the staff of the Chernobyl facilities hostage." At 22:00 (UTC+2), Russian forces captured Snake Island after a naval and air attack of the island. The thirteen border guards on the island were thought to have been killed in the bombardment after refusing to surrender to a Russian warship. President Zelenskyy announced that the border guards would be posthumously granted the title of Hero of Ukraine, the country's highest honor. However, it was found out later that the border guards were alive and captured by Russian forces.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 25 February, while Russian soldiers approached Kyiv, Zelenskyy asked residents to create Molotov cocktails to "neutralise" the enemy. Putin meanwhile called on the Ukrainian military to overthrow the government. Ukraine gave 18,000 guns to Kyiv residents who wanted to fight. Some Russian forces have entered northern Kyiv, but had not progressed beyond that.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 26 February, heavy fighting was reported to the south of Kyiv, near the city of Vasylkiv and its air base. A Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter had shot down a Russian Il-76 transport plane carrying paratroopers near Vasylkiv. Hundreds of deaths were reported in Kyiv during this battle. That same day, Russia claimed to have captured Melitopol, near the Sea of Azov.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 27 February, President Putin ordered Russia's nuclear deterrent forces to be on "special alert" because of "aggressive statements" by NATO. That same day, President Zelenskyy announced that the Ukrainian and Russian officials had agreed to meet, without conditions. That same day, a Russian airstrike killed over 70 Ukrainian soldiers at a military base in Okhtyrka. The Russian offensive has been criticized for civilian deaths and the use of cluster bombs and thermobaric weapons which may be seen as war crimes.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 1 March, Belarus joined the invasion, supporting Russia as its soldiers enter the Chernihiv region in Ukraine's north. On the same day, there was at least one rocket attack on Kyiv; With AFP as a source, media wrote that "Russian strike stirs symbolism at Kyiv Holocaust site". The next day, Russia claimed to have captured its first large city, the Black Sea port of Kherson, as fighting intensifies across many parts of Ukraine, including civilian areas. That same day, the International Criminal Court began an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 3 March, Ukraine passed a law that states captured Russian military equipment and tanks does not need to be declared and tax will not be applied on them. The next day, Russian forces attacked and bombed the Zaphorizhzhia nuclear power plant. The main reactor was not hit and fallout did not occur. That same day, foreign news outlets including the BBC, CNN, and many others stopped their reporting in Russia, after new legislation threatened 15-year jail terms for spreading "fake news".


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 5 March, Russia announced a temporary ceasefire to allow civilians to leave the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha. The next day, Vinnytsia International Airport was destroyed by Russian missiles, as President Zelenskyy called for a no-fly zone to stop future attacks in Ukraine.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 7 March, Ukraine rejected a proposal by Moscow to open refugee passages after Russia said refugees would only be allowed to reach Belarus or Russia.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: Putin had denied on February 7, that Russian conscripts were used in the invasion, because Russian law does not allow the use of conscripts in battle outside Russia. Russian media later admitted they had been used.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 13 March, 30 Russian missiles hit the Yavoriv military base, used for NATO training and close to the border with Poland, killing 35 and injuring 134 others.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 24 March, NATO announced that four new battlegroups totalling 40,000 soldiers will be sent to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, along with enhanced readiness for potential chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 29 March, Russia's deputy defense minister said that Moscow decided to "cut back" military activity near Kyiv and Chernihiv to increase mutual trust for future negotiations to agree and sign a peace deal with Ukraine".


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 2 April, Russia said that the country would not work with Western countries on the International Space Station until the "full and unconditional removal of illegal sanctions". The next day, Ukraine accused Russia and Putin of war crimes because of civilian killings such as the Bucha massacre. U.S. President Joe Biden called for Putin to be tried for war crimes. On April 7, Russia was suspended from the United Nations Council on Human Rights. This followed a vote which was backed by 97 nations.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 8 April, Russia attacked the Kramatorsk train station with missiles, which killed many civilians trying to evacuate, including children. On 13 April, the Russian flagship cruiser "Moskva", the largest naval vessel to be sunk since the end of World War II, sank after an explosion off of the Ukrainian coast.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 19 April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that Russia's military operation had entered a new phase, focused on the entire front line of Eastern Ukraine with the city of Kreminna reportedly the first to be captured.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 2 May, Russia announced it may be pulling out of the International Space Station in two years, because of the economic sanctions imposed on the nation because of the invasion. On 14 May, Russian forces withdrew (or did leave) from Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv, in the north-east of the country.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 16 May, the Siege of Mariupol ended in a Russian victory as Ukrainian soldiers are evacuated from Mariupol.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 27 June, the Russian Armed Forces fired missiles at a mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, which killed sixteen people and injured over 50 others.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 3 July, Russia and the Luhansk People's Republic took control of the entire Luhansk Oblast after seizing Lysychansk. On 14 July, a Russian missile attacked Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, which killed at least 22 people, including 3 children, and injured at least 100 others.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: According to the Kyiv School of Economics, the conflict has caused $113.5 billion in damages and destruction in Ukraine. Transportation infrastructure and housing is the main reason for these damages.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 30 September 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in an address to both houses of the Russian parliament. Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations all condemned the annexation.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 8 October, the Crimean Bridge partially collapsed due to an explosion. Russia accused Ukraine of being behind the blast and launched retaliatory missile strikes against Ukrainian civilian areas.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 9 November, Russian troops began to withdraw from Kherson, the only regional capital they captured since the start of the invasion. Afterwards, Ukrainian forces recaptured the city two days later, on 11 November.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: In early December, heavy fighting was still going on near Bakhmut and south of Bakhmut (Battle of Bakhmut).


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 24 February 2022, the Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison said there would be travel bans. There would also be financial sanctions against eight members of Russia's national security council.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: The United Kingdom, United Nations, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Sweden, Turkey, Norway, Canada, and Italy have also disagreed with the invasion.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 24 February 2022, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said the group has allowed "massive" actions that would target technological transfers, Russian banks and Russian assets. That same day, President Putin said Western countries that take part in the actions "will face consequences".


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 26 February, the European Union, the United States and their allies say that they support in removing Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. The next day, many European nations announced a ban on Russian flights in their airspace.


title: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

text: On 28 February, Switzerland, Monaco, Singapore, and South Korea put in place economic sanctions on Russia such as controlling exports and assets. These countries were once seen as neutral during global conflicts.