text: On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy's assassination made it very clear to Congress that they needed to figure out a solution about presidential succession right away. The United States was in the middle of the Cold War. The new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, had previously had a heart attack in 1955 along with a family history of Johnson men dying relatively young (in their early 60s, which he did in 1973 aged 64). The next two people in line for the presidency were the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John McCormack (who was 71 years old), and the President pro tempore of the Senate, Carl Hayden (who was 86 years old). Congress started moving more quickly.


title: Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution

text: The KeatingKefauver Proposal suggested allowing Congress to make a law about who should decide when a President is disabled. It was proposed in 1963 by Senator Kenneth Keating of New York, and supported by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver. However, other Senators were worried that Congress could abuse this power, or would not actually make the law after the amendment was passed.


text: The BayhCeller Proposal ended up becoming the Twenty-fifth Amendment. On January 6, 1965, Senator Birch Bayh proposed the amendment in the United States Senate, and Representative Emanuel Celler (Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) proposed it in the United States House of Representatives. Unlike the KeatingKefauver Proposal, it suggested a way to fill the Vice President's position if it was empty, and also set out rules for how a President could be declared "disabled."


text: On February 19, 1965, the Senate passed the amendment. However, the House passed a different version of the amendment on April 13. The House and Senate had to form committees to figure out a version of the amendment they could all agree on. On July 6, 1965, both Houses of Congress passed the final version of the amendment and sent it to the states for ratification.


text: As with all Constitutional amendments proposed by the Congress, the Twenty-fifth Amendment had to be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 of 50). Ratification was complete 19 months after the Amendment was proposed. Another nine states subsequently also ratified the Amendment; three states did not vote to ratify the Amendment.


text: Section 1 made the "Tyler Precedent" a law. It says that if a President is removed from office, dies, or resigns, the Vice President immediately becomes President (not "Acting President").


text: Before the Twenty-fifth Amendment, if the Vice President's position was empty, it stayed empty until the next election.


text: Under Section 2, whenever there is a vacancy in the office of Vice President, the President nominates someone to replace the Vice President. If a majority of both Houses of Congress agree, that person becomes the Vice President.


text: Section 3 says that a President can declare themselves "unable to discharge the powers and duties of their office" (unable to do their job). He or she must say this in a written letter to both the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Once the President does this, the Vice President becomes Acting President. The President can take back the Presidency at any time by sending letters to the President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House, saying he or she is able to discharge the powers and duties of the Presidency again.


text: Section 4 is the only part of the Amendment that has never been used. It allows other executive officials to declare the President unable to do his job. The Vice President must agree to do this. So must:


text: To declare the President unable to do his job, these people would have to sign and give a letter to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. As with Section 3, the Vice President would then become the Acting President.


text: The President may take back the Presidency by sending a letter to the President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House. However, if the Vice President and the Cabinet think the President is still disabled and still cannot do his job, they can challenge his return. They have four days to write another declaration saying the President is still unable to do his job. The Vice President is still Acting President during these four days. Congress then has to get together within 48 hours, if they are not already in session. Then Congress has 21 days to make a decision. In the meantime, the Vice President is still Acting President.


text: If two-thirds of each House of Congress votes that the President still cannot do his job, the Vice President would continue to be Acting President. If Congress does not vote this way, or if they do not vote at all within 21 days, the President takes over the Presidency again.


text: The Twenty-fifth Amendment has been invoked (used) six times since it was added to the Constitution. Section 1 has been used once; Section 2 has been used twice; and Section 3 has been used three times. Only Section 4 has never been used, though it was considered twice.


text: President Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, before the House could vote on whether to impeach him for crimes related to the Watergate scandal. Vice President Gerald Ford became President as soon as Nixon resigned.


text: On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. Two days later, President Richard Nixon nominated United States Representative Gerald Ford of Michigan to be the new Vice President. According to Section 2, more than 50% of each House of Congress had to approve Ford as Vice President. By December 6, 97% of the Senate and 92% of the House had approved Ford. Ford was sworn in to the Vice Presidency later on December 6 before both Houses of Congress. Ford is the only person in United States history ever to be Vice President, and later President, without being elected to either office.


text: When Gerald Ford became President after Richard Nixon resigned, the Vice Presidency became vacant. On August 20, 1974, the new President Ford nominated former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to be the new Vice President. On December 10, 1974, the Senate confirmed Rockefeller with a vote of 90–7. Nine days later, the House voted 287-128 to confirm Rockefeller. He was sworn into office later on December 19, 1974, before the Senate.


text: Presidents have used Section 3 of the 25th Amendment three times. Each time, they have given power to their Vice Presidents for a short time because they needed to get anesthesia for medical tests or surgery. The three Acting Presidents in United States history are listed below.


text: On July 12, 1985, President Ronald Reagan found out that he had a small growth in his colon that could turn into colon cancer. His doctor told him he needed surgery. Reagan decided to have surgery right away.


text: However, Reagan did not want to invoke Section 3 of the 25th Amendment. He was worried that giving Presidential power away would set a bad precedent. The White House's head lawyer and Reagan's Chief of Staff suggested that he use Section 3 and give power to Vice President George H.W. Bush.


text: Two letters were created. The first invoked Section 3 and said Reagan would be unable to discharge his duties. The second said that Reagan knew about Section 3, and did not think it applied to his situation, but still wanted Bush to take over during his surgery. On July 13, Reagan signed the second letter and had it delivered to the President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House.


text: Reagan's autobiography, and other books, argue that Reagan clearly meant to give power to Vice President Bush. The White House lawyer, Fred Fielding, said:


text: However, since Reagan did not specifically mention Section 3 and say he could not do his job as President, he did not officially invoke the 25th Amendment.


text: On June 29, 2002, President George W. Bush became the first President to officially invoke Section 3. He needed a colonoscopy, a test of the colon, and would be getting anesthesia. He formally gave power to his Vice President, Dick Cheney, using the rules that the 25th Amendment set out. Unlike Reagan, he specifically said he was using Section 3 of the 25th Amendment in his letter to the President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House. After about two hours, Bush was awake and took back the Presidency.


text: On July 21, 2007, President Bush again invoked Section 3 so he could have another colonoscopy. Again, Cheney was Acting President for about two hours, until Bush was ready to take back the Presidency.


text: As of 2021, Section 4 has never been invoked, however there were at least two occasions where the use of Section 4 was considered and another where its non-use came under substantial criticism. These occurred during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.


text: On March 30, 1981, a man named John Hinckley tried to kill President Ronald Reagan. Reagan was shot and needed immediate surgery, so he could not invoke Section 3 to give power to his Vice President. His Vice President, George H.W. Bush, did not invoke Section 4, because he was on an airplane returning from Texas. Reagan was out of surgery by the time Bush got to Washington, D.C.


text: In 1995, Birch Bayh, who had written the Senate version of the 25th Amendment, wrote that Section 4 should have been invoked.


text: In 1987, Reagan's Chief of Staff, Donald Regan, resigned. Howard Baker replaced him. Reagan's staff told Baker that Reagan seemed lazy and unable to do his job. They told him to be ready for Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to be invoked.


title: Science

text: Science is what we do to find out about the natural world. Natural sciences include, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, and physics. Science uses mathematics and logic, which are sometimes called "formal sciences". Natural science makes observations and experiments. Science produces accurate facts, scientific laws and theories. 'Science' also refers to the large amount of knowledge that has been found using this process.


title: Science

text: Research uses the scientific method. Scientific research uses hypotheses based on ideas or earlier knowledge, which can be categorized through different topics. Then those hypotheses are tested by experiments.


title: Science

text: People who study and research science and try to find out everything about it are called scientists. Scientists study things by looking at them very carefully, by measuring them, and by doing experiments and tests. Scientists try to explain why things act the way they do, and predict what will happen.


title: Science

text: Today, "science" usually refers to a way of pursuing knowledge, not just the knowledge itself. It is mainly about the phenomena of the material world. The Greek works into Western Europe from the 6th to 7th century B.C. revived "Philosophy". In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of "laws of nature" such as Newton's laws of motion. And during the 19th century, the word "science" became more and more associated with the scientific method itself. It was seen as a way to study the natural world, including physics, chemistry, geology and biology.


title: Science

text: It was also in the 19th century that the term "scientist" was created by William Whewell. He meant it to tell the difference between those who looked for knowledge on nature from those who looked for other types of knowledge.


title: Science

text: The scientific method is the name given to the methods used by scientists to find knowledge. The main features of the scientific method are:


title: Science

text: A famous example of science in action was the expedition led by Arthur Eddington to Principe Island in Africa in 1919. He went there to record where the stars were around the Sun during a solar eclipse. The observation of where the stars were shown that the apparent star positions close to the Sun were changed. In effect, the light passing the Sun was pulled towards the Sun by gravitation. This confirmed predictions of gravitational lensing made by Albert Einstein in the general theory of relativity, published in 1915. Eddington's observations were considered to be the first solid proof in favour of Einstein's theory.


title: Science

text: Not everyone completely agrees about how theories should be used or updated. Some philosophers and scientists say that scientific theories are only accepted for the time being. They last as long as they are the best explanation. When theories no longer explain the data, they are removed and replaced. Or, sometimes scientists will make a theory better rather than remove it, or they will keep on using the theory hoping that it will be made better eventually.


title: Science

text: Scientists must be very careful to make explanations that fit well with what they observe and measure. They compete to provide better explanations. An explanation might be interesting or pleasing, but if it does not agree with what other scientists really see and measure, they will try to find a better explanation.


title: Science

text: Before a scientific article is published, other scientists read the article. They decide whether the explanations make sense from the data. This is called peer review. After articles are published, other scientists will also check to see if the same experiments, observations or tests produce the same data again. Peer review and repeating experiments are the only way to be sure the knowledge is correct.


title: Science

text: Science makes models of nature, models of our universe, and medicine. There are many different sciences with their own names. However it is not right to say "science says" any one thing. Science is a process, not just the facts and rules believed at one time.


title: Big Ben

text: Big Ben is the nickname of a bell that hangs in the clock tower at the northern end of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, England. Officially, the tower itself is called Elizabeth Tower. It was previously known as just the Clock Tower, but was renamed in September 2012 as a tribute to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. However, most people, including those that live in London, call the tower "Big Ben" because it is very large.


title: Big Ben

text: Designed by Edmund Beckett Denison, the clock took 13 years to build and it was completed in 1859. It has worked continuously since then except for a few months in 1976 when it broke down and had to be fixed.


title: Big Ben

text: Big Ben is one of England’s best-known landmarks. Some believe it got its name from Sir Benjamin Hall. The Elizabeth Tower which it is located in has become one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and is often in the establishing shot of films set in London.


title: Big Ben

text: Since August 2017, repair work is being done on the clock, which will take four years. For the safety of those doing this work, Big Ben no longer rings out every hour. It will still be heard on special occasions, such as the New Year and Remembrance Day.


title: Big Ben

text: The Elizabeth Tower is over high and the turret clock mechanism that drives the clock alone weighs about 5 tons (5.08 tonnes). The clock on it has four faces that are in diameter, making it one of the largest in the world for a clock that chimes and strikes every hour. The figures on the clock face are about long and the minute spaces are long. There are, however, clocks with much bigger faces that Big Ben. One of these is the Abraj Al Bait, a hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Its faces are more than ten times bigger than Big Ben.


title: Big Ben

text: The bell known as Big Ben weighs 13 tons and is the biggest of the five bells in the Elizabeth Tower. Big Ben only sounds at the top of every hour, and at that time it rings once for every hour (for example, it rings three times at 3 o'clock). The other four bells in the tower are smaller and play a short melody every 15 minutes. This melody, which is broadcasted live on BBC Radio 4 at 6 pm and midnight every day, can be heard in many other clocks around the world and is called the Westminster Chimes.


title: Big Ben

text: The bells are struck by hammers that are connected to the clock mechanism, which is powered by large weights that are wound three times a week. It does not use any electricity except for winding and to light the faces so that the clock could be seen when it is dark.


title: Newspaper

text: A newspaper is a publication printed on paper and issued regularly, usually once a day or once a week. It gives information and opinions about current events and news. Usually people like to read them to stay informed about their local city, state or country. Newspapers can be delivered to one's home, by subscription. One also can buy a newspaper at a store or at a newsstand. Recycling of paper is common. It may be converted to new paper, for example.


title: Newspaper

text: Newspapers usually have many topics. They usually include political events, crime, business, sports, and weather news. Newspapers use photographs to illustrate stories; and also often include comicss and other entertainment, such as crosswords and horoscopes. Many have opinion sections. These sections print the opinions of people who work for the newspaper. The opinions, which are usually on stories in the news, are called "editorials". Opinion sections usually also print short letters from people who read the newspaper.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar (, , or ; ' ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar ( '), is a sovereign country in Western Asia. It is on the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its only land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait in the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island country of Bahrain, as well as sharing maritime borders with the United Arab Emirates and Iran.


title: Qatar

text: Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971. Qatar has been ruled by the House of Thani since the early 19th century. Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani was the founder of the State of Qatar. Qatar is a hereditary monarchy and its head of state is Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Whether it should be called a constitutional or an absolute monarchy is a matter of opinion. In 2003, the constitution was overwhelmingly approved in a referendum, with almost 98% in favour. As of early 2017, Qatar's total population was around 2.6 million: 313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is a high income economy and is a developed country, with the world's third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world. Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development. Qatar is a significant power in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network. For its small size, Qatar has a lot of influence in the world, and has been identified as a middle power. Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is either a constitutional or an absolute monarchy ruled by the Al Thani family. The Al Thani dynasty has been ruling Qatar since the family house was established in 1825. In 2003, Qatar adopted a constitution that provided for the direct election of 30 of the 45 members of the Legislative Council. The constitution was overwhelmingly approved in a referendum, with almost 98% in favour.


title: Qatar

text: The eighth Emir of Qatar is Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whose father Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani handed power to him on June 25, 2013. The supreme chancellor has the exclusive power to appoint and remove the prime minister and cabinet ministers who, together, constitute the Council of Ministers, which is the supreme executive authority in the country. The Council of Ministers also initiates legislation. Laws and decrees proposed by the Council of Ministers are referred to the Advisory Council (Majilis Al-Shura) for discussion after which they are submitted to the Emir for ratification. A Consultative Assembly has limited power to draft and approve laws, but the Emir has final say on all matters. The current Council is made up entirely of members appointed by the Emir, as no legislative elections have been held since 1970 when there were partial elections to the body. Legislative elections are expected to be held in 2016.


title: Qatar

text: Sharia law is the main source of Qatari legislation according to Qatar's Constitution. In practice, Qatar's legal system is a mixture of civil law and Sharia law. Sharia law is applied to laws pertaining to family law, inheritance, and several criminal acts (including adultery, robbery and murder). In some cases in Sharia-based family courts, a female's testimony is worth half a man's. Codified family law was introduced in 2006. Islamic polygamy is allowed in the country.


title: Qatar

text: Flogging is used in Qatar as a punishment for alcohol consumption or illicit sexual relations. Article 88 of Qatar's criminal code declares the punishment for adultery is 100 lashes. In 2006, a Filipino woman was sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery. In 2010, at least 18 people (mostly foreign nationals) were sentenced to flogging of between 40 and 100 lashes for offences related to "illicit sexual relations" or alcohol consumption. In 2011, at least 21 people (mostly foreign nationals) were sentenced to floggings of between 30 and 100 lashes for offences related to "illicit sexual relations" or alcohol consumption. In 2012, six expatriates were sentenced to floggings of either 40 or 100 lashes. Only Muslims considered medically fit were liable to have such sentences carried out. It is unknown if the sentences were implemented. More recently in April 2013, a Muslim expatriate was sentenced to 40 lashes for alcohol consumption. In June 2014, a Muslim expatriate was sentenced to 40 lashes for consuming alcohol and driving under the influence. Judicial corporal punishment is common in Qatar due to the Hanbali interpretation of Sharia Law.


title: Qatar

text: Stoning is a legal punishment in Qatar. Apostasy is a crime punishable by the death penalty in Qatar. Blasphemy is punishable by up to seven years in prison and proselytizing can be punished by up to 10 years in prison. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by the death penalty.


title: Qatar

text: Alcohol consumption is partially legal in Qatar; some five-star luxury hotels are allowed to sell alcohol to their non-Muslim customers. Muslims are not allowed to consume alcohol in Qatar and Muslims caught consuming alcohol are liable to flogging or deportation. Non-Muslim expatriates can obtain a permit to purchase alcohol for personal consumption. The Qatar Distribution Company (a subsidiary of Qatar Airways) is permitted to import alcohol and pork; it operates the one and only liquor store in the country, which also sells pork to holders of liquor licences. Qatari officials have also indicated a willingness to allow alcohol in "fan zones" at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Qatar

text: Until recently, restaurants on the Pearl-Qatar (a man-made island near Doha) were allowed to serve alcoholic drinks. In December 2011, however, restaurants on the Pearl were told to stop selling alcohol. No explanation was given for the ban. Speculation about the reason includes the government's desire to project a more pious image in advance of the country's first election of a royal advisory body and rumours of a financial dispute between the government and the resort's developers.


title: Qatar

text: In 2014, Qatar launched a modesty campaign to remind tourists of the modest dress code. Female tourists are advised not to wear leggings, miniskirts, sleeveless dresses and short or tight clothing in public. Men are advised against wearing only shorts and singlets.


title: Qatar

text: According to the U.S. State Department, expatriate workers from nations throughout Asia and parts of Africa voluntarily migrate to Qatar as low-skilled laborers or domestic servants, but some subsequently face conditions indicative of involuntary servitude. Some of the more common labor rights violations include beatings, withholding of payment, charging workers for benefits for which the employer is responsible, restrictions on freedom of movement (such as the confiscation of passports, travel documents, or exit permits), arbitrary detention, threats of legal action, and sexual assault. Many migrant workers arriving for work in Qatar have paid exorbitant fees to recruiters in their home countries.


title: Qatar

text: As of 2014, certain provisions of the Qatari Criminal Code allows punishments such as flogging and stoning to be imposed as criminal sanctions. The UN Committee Against Torture found that these practices constituted a breach of the obligations imposed by the UN Convention Against Torture. Qatar retains the death penalty, mainly for threats against national security. Use of the death penalty is rare and no state executions have taken place in Qatar since 2003.


title: Qatar

text: Under the provisions of Qatar's sponsorship law, sponsors have the unilateral power to cancel workers' residency permits, deny workers' ability to change employers, report a worker as "absconded" to police authorities, and deny permission to leave the country. As a result, sponsors may restrict workers' movements and workers may be afraid to report abuses or claim their rights. According to the ITUC, the visa sponsorship system allows the exaction of forced labor by making it difficult for a migrant worker to leave an abusive employer or travel overseas without permission. Qatar also does not maintain wage standards for its immigrant labourers. Qatar commissioned the international law firm DLA Piper to produce a report investigating the immigrant labor system. In May 2014 DLA Piper released over 60 recommendations for reforming the kafala system including the abolition of exit visas and the introduction of a minimum wage which Qatar has pledged to implement.


title: Qatar

text: In May 2012, Qatari officials declared their intention to allow the establishment of an independent trade union. Qatar also announced it will scrap its sponsor system for foreign labour, which requires that all foreign workers be sponsored by local employers. Additional changes to labour laws include a provision guaranteeing that all workers' salaries are paid directly into their bank accounts and new restrictions on working outdoors in the hottest hours during the summer. New draft legislation announced in early 2015 mandates that companies that fail to pay workers' wages on time could temporarily lose their ability to hire more employees.


title: Qatar

text: In October 2015 Qatar's Emir signed into law new reforms to the country's sponsorship system, with the new law taking effect within one year. Critics claim that the changes could fail to address some labour rights issues.


title: Qatar

text: The country enfranchised women at the same time as men in connection with the 1999 elections for a Central Municipal Council. These elections—the first ever in Qatar—were deliberately held on March 8, 1999, International Women's Day.


title: Qatar

text: As a small country with larger neighbors, Qatar seeks to project influence and protect its state and ruling dynasty. The history of Qatar's alliances provides insight into the basis of their policy. Between 1760 and 1971, Qatar sought formal protection from the high transitory powers of the Ottomans, British, the Al-Khalifa's from Bahrain, the Arabians, and the Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia. Qatar's rising international profile and active role in international affairs has led some analysts to identify it as a middle power. Qatar was an early member of OPEC and a founding member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It is a member of the Arab League. The country has not accepted compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar also has bilateral relationships with a variety of foreign powers. Qatar hosts the Al Udeid Air Base, a joint U.S.-British base, which acts as the hub for all American and British air operations in the Persian Gulf. It has allowed American and British forces to use an air base to send supplies to Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite hosting this strategic military installation, Qatar is not always a strong Western ally. Qatar has allowed the Afghan Taliban to set up a political office inside the country and has close ties to Iran, including a shared natural gas field. According to leaked documents published in "The New York Times", Qatar's record of counter-terrorism efforts was the "worst in the region". The cable suggested that Qatar's security service was "hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals".


title: Qatar

text: Qatar has mixed relations with its neighbors in the Persian Gulf region. Qatar signed a defence co-operation agreement with Iran, with whom it shares the largest single non-associated gas field in the world. It was the second nation, the first being France, to have publicly announced its recognition of the Libyan opposition's National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya amidst the 2011 Libyan civil war.


title: Qatar

text: In 2014, Qatar's relations with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates came to a boiling point over Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood and extremist groups in Syria.


title: Qatar

text: This culminated in the three aforementioned countries withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar in March 2014. When the ambassadors withdrew, the GCC was reportedly on the verge of a crisis linked to the emergence of distinct political blocs with conflicting interests. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain were engaged in a political struggle with Qatar, while Oman and Kuwait represent a non-aligned bloc within the GCC. Relations between the countries improved after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) announced Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE returned their diplomats to Qatar. Islam Hassan, a researcher in Persian Gulf Studies at Qatar University, claims that, with the resolution of the GCC crisis, Qatar reached a new level of political maturity. He goes on to assert that Qatar managed to bring an end to the crisis without changing any of its foreign policy principles or abandoning its allies.


title: Qatar

text: In recent years, Qatar has been using Islamist militants in a number of countries including Egypt, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Mali to further its foreign policy. Courting Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood to Salafist groups has served as a power amplifier for the country, as it believes since the beginning of the Arab Spring that these groups represented the wave of the future. David Cohen, the Under Secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the U.S. Treasury, said that Qatar is a "permissive jurisdiction for terrorist financing." There is evidence that these groups supported by Qatar include the hard-line Islamic militant groups active in northern Syria. , Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are openly backing the Army of Conquest, an umbrella group of anti-government forces fighting in the Syrian Civil War that reportedly includes an al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and another Salafi coalition known as Ahrar ash-Sham.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar supported the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi with diplomatic support and the state-owned Al Jazeera network before he was deposed in a military coup. Qatar offered Egypt a $7.5 billion loan during the year he was in power.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's alignment with Hamas, first reported in early 2012, has drawn criticism from Israel, the United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, "who accuse Qatar of undermining regional stability by supporting Hamas." However, the Foreign Minister of Qatar has denied supporting Hamas, stating "We do not support Hamas but we support the Palestinians." Following a peace agreement, Qatar pledged $1 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar has hosted academic, religious, political, and economic conferences. The 11th annual Doha Forum recently brought in key thinkers, professionals of various backgrounds, and political figures from all over the world to discuss democracy, media and information technology, free trade, and water security issues. In addition, the forum has featured the Middle East Economic Future conference since 2006. In more recent times, Qatar has hosted peace talks between rival factions across the globe. Notable among these include the Darfur Agreement. The Doha Declaration is the basis of the peace process in Darfur and it has achieved significant gains on the ground for the African region. Notable achievements included the restoration of security and stability, progress made in construction and reconstruction processes, return of displaced residents and uniting of Darfur people to face challenges and push forward the peace process. Qatar donated £88.5million in funds to finance recovery and reconstruction in Darfur.


title: Qatar

text: The Qatar Armed Forces are the military forces of Qatar. The country maintains a modest military force of approximately 11,800 men, including an army (8,500), navy (1,800) and air force (1,500). Qatar's defence expenditures accounted for approximately 4.2% of gross national product in 1993. In 2008 Qatar spent US$2.355 billion on military expenditures, 2.3% of the gross domestic product. Qatari special forces have been trained by France and other Western countries, and are believed to possess considerable skill. They also helped the Libyan rebels during the 2011 Battle of Tripoli.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar has signed defense pacts with the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as with France earlier in 1994. Qatar plays an active role in the collective defense efforts of the Gulf Cooperation Council; the other five members are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman. The presence of a large Qatari Air Base, operated by the United States and several other UN nations, provides a guaranteed source of defense and national security.


title: Qatar

text: The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, found that in 2010–14 Qatar was the 46th largest arms importer in the world. However, SIPRI writes, Qatar's plans to transform and significantly enlarge its armed forces have accelerated. Orders in 2013 for 62 tanks and 24 self-propelled guns from Germany were followed in 2014 by several other contracts, including 24 combat helicopters and 3 AEW aircraft from the US, and 2 tanker aircraft from Spain.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's military participated in Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis. In 2015, "Al Jazeera America" reported: "Numerous reports suggest that the Saudi-led coalition against opposition groups in Yemen has indiscriminately attacked civilians and used cluster bombs in civilian-populated areas, in violation of international law."


title: Qatar

text: For statistical purposes, the municipalities are further subdivided into 98 zones (), which are in turn subdivided into blocks.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is a peninsula (a strip of land sticking out into the sea). It is joined to Saudi Arabia to the south, and all the other sides of it are surrounded by the waters of the Arabian Gulf.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is quite a small country and has an area of only 10,360 km². The peninsula is 160 km long. Much of the country is a low, barren plain, covered with sand. The Jebel Dukhan area has Qatar’s main onshore oil deposits. The natural gas fields lie offshore, to the northwest of the peninsula.


title: Qatar

text: The capital of Qatar is Doha. Over 90% of the people live in Doha. The other large city is Al Wakrah.


title: Qatar

text: The Emir is the only one who can appoint and remove the prime minister and cabinet ministers. Together the ministers make up the Council of Ministers. They are the highest executive authority in the country.


title: Qatar

text: People from Qatar are called Qataris. They are Arabs. The official language of Qatar is Arabic, but many people also speak English, especially when they are doing business.


title: Qatar

text: About 2.6 million people live in Qatar; however, about 88% of these are "guest workers" (people from another country who are living and working there for a short time), mostly coming from South Asia, South East Asia, and other Arab countries. 650,000 are Indians, 350,000 Nepalis, 260,000 Filipinos among a lot of other nationalities.


title: Qatar

text: Almost all Qataris follow the religion of Islam. However, many of the guest workers follow other religions.


title: Qatar

text: Football is the most popular sport in Qatar, closely followed by cricket. The Qatar under-20 national football team finished second in the 1981 FIFA World Youth Championship.


title: Qatar

text: The Asian Football Confederation's 2011 AFC Asian Cup finals were held in Qatar in January 2011. It was the second time it has been hosted by Qatar, the other being the 1988 AFC Asian Cup.


title: Qatar

text: Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha, Qatar, hosted the WTA Tour Championships in women's tennis between 2008 and 2010. Doha holds the WTA Premier tournament Qatar Ladies Open each year.


title: Qatar

text: Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar won the 2011 Dakar Rally and the Production World Rally Championship in 2006. In addition, he has also won gold medals at the 2002 Asian Games and 2010 Asian Games as part of the Qatari skeet shooting team.


title: Qatar

text: Since 2002, Qatar has hosted the yearly Tour of Qatar, a cycling race in six stages. Every February, riders are racing on the roads across Qatar's flat land for six days. Each stage covers a distance of more than 100 km.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Sarvepalli Radhakrishnayya; 5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975) was an Indian philosopher and politician.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: He served as the 2nd President of India from 1962 to 1967 and 1st Vice President of India from 1952 to 1962. He was also the 2nd Ambassador of India to Soviet Union from 1949 to 1952 & 4th Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: One of the most distinguished twentieth-century scholars of comparative religion and philosophy, Radhakrishnan held the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta from 1921 to 1932 and Spalding Chair of Eastern Religion and Ethics at University of Oxford from 1936 to 1952.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: Radhakrishnan's philosophy was grounded in Advaita Vedanta, reinterpreting this tradition for a contemporary understanding. He defended Hinduism against what he called "uninformed Western criticism", contributing to the formation of contemporary Hindu identity. He has been influential in shaping the understanding of Hinduism, in both India and the west, and earned a reputation as a bridge-builder between India and the West.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: Radhakrishnan was awarded several high awards during his life, including a knighthood in 1931, the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India, in 1954, and honorary membership of the British Royal Order of Merit in 1963. He was also one of the founders of Helpage India, a non profit organisation for elderly underprivileged in India. Radhakrishnan believed that "teachers should be the best minds in the country". Since 1962, his birthday has been celebrated in India as Teachers' Day on 5 September every year.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: He was the bridge-builder between East and the West due to his great knowledge. He had the ability to simplify complex ideas.


title: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

text: Dr. Radhakrishnan was critical of the way teaching of Western Philosophers. The basis of criticism was that theology dominated the western thinkers preventing freedom of expression. He wrote books on Indian philosophy according to Western academic standards, and made all efforts for the West to give serious consideration to Indian philosophy. In his book, Idealist View of Life, he compares different ways of thought process and favours the simplistic rational way. He is well known for his analysis of "Human Way of Life" by listening from elders (Upanishads), use of common sense (Bramha Sutra) and practical way of living (Bhagvad Gita). His birthday is celebrated as Teachers Day all over India.


title: Scientist

text: A scientist is a person who studies or has mastered the field in science. A scientist tries to understand how our world, or other things, work. Scientists make observations, ask questions and do extensive research work in finding the answers to many questions.


title: Scientist

text: Scientists may work in laboratories for governments, companies, schools and research institutions. Some scientists teach at universities and other places and train people to become scientists. Scientists often do experiments to find out more about reality, and sometimes may repeat experiments or use control groups. Scientists who are doing applied science try to use scientific knowledge to improve the world.


title: Nature

text: The words nature and natural are used for all the things that are normally not made by humans. The word comes from the Latin "natura" meaning "birth". Nature includes many things like weather, organisms, landforms, celestial bodies. Scientists study the way the parts of nature work. Things that have been made by people are said to be man-made or called artifacts.


title: Nature

text: There are natural sciences that study different parts of nature, for example the science of ecology is about plants and animals as a whole, while biology studies every type of living thing.


title: Nature

text: From one point of view, humans are a prime example of nature, and are the most widely studied natural inhabitants of the planet earth. Humans interact with each other in their natural environment on a day-to-day basis. Every part of nature everything from the air outside to the dirt on the ground is interdependent. Medicine studies humans in health and sickness.


title: Nature

text: From another point of view, humans and nature can be said to be in conflict. People always use natural resources. They cut down trees, mine ores, grow crops and manufacture things from natural material. Fires, cars, and factories make a lot of smoke and harm many places. People who like to leave nature unharmed and those who feel they need to use more of nature often fight about what they should do. In the modern world, with many more people and many big cities, these problems are becoming more serious.


title: Nature

text: Nature, in the broadest sense, means the physical world as a whole. This is the meaning that physics, the study of nature (etymologically), takes.


title: War

text: War is a situation or a period of fighting between countries or groups of people. A war generally involves the use of weapons, a military organization and soldiers. War is a situation in which a nation enforces its rights by using force. Not every armed conflict is a war. A fight between individuals, between gangs, drug cartels, etc. is not considered a war. However, most wars are called armed conflicts. International humanitarian law is a set of rules that tries to limit the effects of wars. International Humanitarian Law recognizes two kinds of wars. These are:


title: War

text: Karl von Clausewitz wrote in his classic book, "On War", that "war is a mere continuation of policy with other means.” Clausewitz viewed war as a political instrument. His book about military philosophy remains the most influential work on the history and strategy of war. An earlier authority on war was Sun Tzu. In his book "The Art of War", Sun Tzu saw war as a necessary evil. It was something people do.


title: War

text: Wars have been fought to control natural resources, for religious or cultural reasons and over political balances of power. They have been fought over legitimacy (correctness) of particular laws. They have been fought to settle arguments about land or money, and many other issues. The reasons behind any war are often very complex. While a war can start for just about any reason, there is usually more than one cause.


title: War

text: From the earliest times, individual states or political factions have used war to gain sovereignty over regions. In one of the earliest civilizations in history, Mesopotamia, they were in a near constant state of war. Ancient Egypt during its Early Dynastic Period came about by war when Lower and Upper Egypt were joined as one country, about 3100 BC. The Zhou Dynasty ruled Ancient China came to power in 1046 through war. Scipio Africanus (236-183 BCE) defeated Carthage leading Ancient Rome to begin a conquest of the known world. Philip II of Macedon (382-336 BCE) united a group of city-states to become Ancient Greece.


title: War

text: Sometimes, people don't see a difference between fighting between countries or people, and the formal declaration of a state of war. Those who do see this difference usually only use the word "war" for the fighting where the countries' governments have officially declared war on each other. Smaller armed conflicts are often called riots, rebellions, coups, etc.


title: War

text: One country may send forces to another country for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is to help keep order or prevent killings of innocents or other crimes against humanity. It may be to protect a friendly government against an uprising. Here it may be called a police action or humanitarian intervention instead of a war. Some people think it's still a war.


title: War

text: Another kind of war existed from 1947 until 1991 called the Cold War. This started when diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union broke down. Both countries had nuclear weapons and both stood ready to use them against the other. But there was no actual war between the two. It ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The cold war was also called a containment where the United States tried to prevent the spread of communism to other countries. During the cold war, the major powers did not fight themselves, but often backed third parties in what was called a proxy war. The Vietnam War is often given as an example of a proxy war. But proxy wars happened long before the cold war and are still happening.


title: War

text: A war between peoples and groups in the same country is known as a civil war. It is generally agreed there are two things that make a war a civil war. It must be a struggle between groups in the same country or state over political control or to force a major change in the government's policy. The second criterion is that more than 1000 people have to have been killed, with a minimum of 100 from each side. The American Civil War is an example of a civil war. While the figures are mere estimates, the total casualties are thought to be about 750,000.


title: War

text: Only in the last 150 years or so, have states agreed on international laws to limit warfare. This has been mainly for humanitarian reasons. The Geneva conventions and the Hague Conventions are two examples of agreements that establish laws governing wars. Collectively, these are usually called International humanitarian law (IHL). Because these are established laws, they restrict those engaged in armed conflicts to follow the IHL. Also, a country must not only respect the law but they also need to make sure other countries respect it as well. They cannot turn a blind eye (meaning pretend they do not see a thing) to countries who are not following IHC. The first of these was the Geneva Convention in 1864. It became international law with the signatures of 100 countries.


title: War

text: The statistical analysis of war was started by Lewis Fry Richardson following World War I. More recent databases of wars have been assembled by the Correlates of War Project and Peter Brecke.


title: Fact

text: A fact is a statement that is real or true, or a thing that can be "shown" to be real or true. That is its core meaning, though the word has a long history, and has been used in many ways.


title: Fact

text: A fact is something that has really happened or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is whether it can be shown to be true. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by careful observation or measurement (by experiments or other means).


title: Fact

text: A fact is a statement (a claim) about something that is true. A fact can answer questions like, "what color is it?" or "who made that?"


title: Fact

text: An opinion is different from a fact. But you can say facts about a person's opinion. For example, someone can ask a question like "What is Alice's opinion about the book?" You can answer this question with a fact, for example "Alice said she likes the book." Then it is a fact that Alice "says" she likes the book. But maybe Alice does not like the book. So it not a fact that Alice likes the book, but it is a fact that Alice "says" she likes the book.


title: Fact

text: One way to learn a fact is if a person can help you see it. For example, if you ask, "do you have my book?" To answer this question, a person can let you see your book. Then you can know it is a fact that this person has your book.


title: Fact

text: A scientific theory is knowledge of important facts about a natural thing. The facts in a scientific theory have evidence that shows that the fact is not false.


title: Fact

text: A person who understands the scientific method can test to see if the facts of a scientific theory are correct. When statements have been tested and shown to be not false, they may be "true". The facts of each scientific theory have usually been questioned and tested by many people. Because of this, we know that the knowledge of a scientific theory is fact and not opinion. Examples of scientific theories include the theory of relativity and the theory of evolution. More simply, it is a fact that the Earth goes around the Sun (and not vice versa). This took so long to establish because a leading religious body had the reverse opinion (see articles on Galileo and Copernicus for the story). Now we can say that there is a difference between statements of fact, and opinions or claimed truths of religion. "The difference is in the way disputes about the truth are decided".


title: 4chan

text: 4chan is an English language website based on the Japanese Futaba Channel where people can post and discuss pictures and other images. Sites such as these are called imageboards. It was started in 2003 by "moot" also known as Christopher Poole, who was 15 years old at the time. On the website, users post pictures and discuss them. When the site started, it was for discussing anime and manga, but now many other topics are discussed. One of the boards on the site, called "/b/", is dedicated to random topics and is often mentioned in media. Several Internet memes have started at 4chan, including lolcats and rickrolling. People have associated it with the alt-right, Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, as well as those part of the Red-Brown coalition, due to there being sections devoted to them.


title: Military

text: The military is the group or groups of people that are given power to defend something (mostly a country). They are armed, so they are called the armed forces. The military protects its country by defending it from the armed forces of enemies, if there is a war. The military can also be ordered by the government of the country to attack another country. The word "military" comes from Latin "miles", warrior.


title: Military

text: There are many jobs to do in a military. Some jobs are for fighting and some are for other work to support the military. Some things people do in the military are use weapons, drive vehicles, and repair weapons. Other people in the military learn how to fly aircraft, pilot ships, or repair engines. People in the military usually wear clothes called a uniform. In some places, especially where there may be combat, a uniform often comes in a camouflage pattern which is designed to make the person hard to see in the forest or desert.


title: Military

text: There are two ways to join the military. In many countries, people join the military because they want to. In other countries, there are laws that some people have to be in the military, even if they do not want to be. This is called "the draft" or "conscription". It usually depends on age and physical fitness. Old military people or former military people are called "veterans". Some are members of a military reserve force.


title: Military

text: The military of a country is usually divided into different branches organizations that do different kinds of work. These branches usually are:


title: Military

text: Some big countries even have small units which perform special actions which are very difficult. They are called special forces.


title: Military

text: There are also mercenaries, soldiers who fight just for pay and have little loyalty to whomever might hire them, and private military contractors (PMC), which are under the command of a company (civilian company). The Medieval Italian "condottieri" were a historical example of PMCs. A warlord may have a private army, which are often no more trustworthy than common gangsters or criminals.


title: Military

text: In most countries of the world, young men and (in a few countries) women between 17 and 18 and of good health may be forced by the government of their country to join the military and have military training. This is called "conscription". The countries that do not have conscription include Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In some countries, such as Argentina and United States, conscription is legal but is not used, at the present time.


title: Military

text: When a person wants to join the military as a volunteer, they "enlist". (This means simply that they put their name on a list.) They have to be above a certain age, 17 or 18 in most countries. They have to pass physical fitness tests to show that they are well enough to do the jobs that they will have to do. They must also have good enough hearing, to hear orders, and good enough sight to use a rifle.


title: Military

text: New people in the military are often called “recruits”. They have training at a special camp, sometimes called “boot camp" or "basic training". During this training, the recruits usually have very little free time. They learn to understand the "orders" or "commands" that are given by the officers to the "troops". (The troops are the military people in a group.) They learn the right ways to obey the orders. They do a lot of exercise to improve their fitness and strength. They learn about weapons, first aid, and their uniforms and "kit". (Their kit is their equipment.) Recruits also learn how to march. (This is the way to walk together, keeping "in step".) Learning to march is sometimes called “drill”. By the time soldiers finish "boot camp", they should know enough to be a helpful person in their group. The camp usually finishes with a parade in which the newly trained recruits show off their marching and other skills they have learned in front of important visitors. Once the recruits are fully trained, they are ready to defend (protect) their country from attack, or to go to [war], if necessary.


title: International System of Units

text: The International System of Units is the standard modern form of the metric system. The name of this system can be shortened or abbreviated to SI, from the French name "Système International d'unités".


title: International System of Units

text: The International System of Units is a system of measurement based on 7 base units: the metre (length), kilogram (mass), second (time), ampere (electric current), kelvin (temperature), mole (quantity), and candela (brightness). These base units can be used in combination with each other. This creates "SI derived units", which can be used to describe other quantities, such as volume, energy, pressure, and velocity.


title: International System of Units

text: The system is used almost globally. Only Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States do not use SI as their official system of measurement. In these countries, though, SI is commonly used in science and medicine.


title: International System of Units

text: The metric system was created in France after the French Revolution in 1789. The original system only had two standard units, the kilogram and the metre. The metric system became popular amongst scientists.


title: International System of Units

text: In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (later known as Lord Kelvin) suggested a system with three base units – length, mass, and time. Other units would be derived from those three base units. Later, this suggestion would be used to create the centimetre-gram-second system of units (CGS), which used the centimetre as the base unit for length, the gram as the base unit for mass, and the second as the base unit for time. It also added the dyne as the base unit for force and the erg as the base unit for energy.


title: International System of Units

text: As scientists studied electricity and magnetism, they realized other base units were needed to describe these subjects. By the middle of the 20th century, many different versions of the metric system were being used. This was very confusing.


title: International System of Units

text: In 1954, the 9th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) created the first version of the International System of Units. The six base units that they used were the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, Kelvin, and candela. The seventh base unit, the mole, was added in 1971.


title: International System of Units

text: SI is now used almost everywhere in the world, except in the United States, Liberia and Myanmar, where the older imperial units are still widely used. Other countries, most of them historically related to the British Empire, are slowly replacing the old imperial system with the metric system or using both systems at the same time.


title: International System of Units

text: The SI base units are measurements used by scientists and other people around the world. All the other units can be written by combining these seven base units in different ways. These other units are called "derived units".


title: International System of Units

text: Derived units are created by combining the base units. The base units can be divided, multiplied, or raised to powers. Some derived units have special names. Usually these were created to make calculations simpler.


title: International System of Units

text: Very large or very small measurements can be written using prefixes. Prefixes are added to the beginning of the unit to make a new unit. For example, the prefix "kilo-" means "1000" times the original unit and the prefix "milli-" means "0.001" times the original unit. So one "kilometre" is 1000 metres and one "milligram" is a 1000th of a gram.


title: Speaker of the Lok Sabha

text: The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is the presiding officer of the lower house of the Parliament of India, known as the Lok Sabha. The role of the Speaker is the same as in other countries which use the Westminster system of government.


title: Speaker of the Lok Sabha

text: The speaker is elected in the very first meeting of the Lok Sabha after the general elections. He or she is chosen from the members of Lok Sabha. The speaker serves for a term of five years. The current speaker is Om Birla. He is the Member of parliament from Rajasthan.


title: Leaning Tower of Pisa

text: The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a building in Pisa, Italy. It is a bell tower. It is famous because it is not vertical. In 1990 the tower was leaning at 5.5 degrees and increasing. After that, much restoration work has been done to stop it from falling over completely. There was scaffolding all around the tower for 20 years. On 26 April 2011, the last bit of scaffolding was removed so that the tower can be seen properly again.


title: Leaning Tower of Pisa

text: The height of the tower is about 56 metres from the ground. Its weight is about 14,500 tonnes. It now leans at about 3.99 degrees. The tower has 294 steps.


title: Leaning Tower of Pisa

text: When the second floor was built in 1178, the tower started to lean. This was because it had a small three-meter foundation in soft soil. The design of this tower was bad from the beginning. Construction was stopped for almost 100 years because the people of Pisa were often at war with Genoa, Lucca, and Florence.


title: Maize

text: Maize or Indian corn (called corn in some countries) is "Zea mays", a member of the grass family "Poaceae". It is a cereal grain which was first grown by people in ancient Central America. Approximately 1 billion tonnes are harvested every year. However, little of this maize is eaten directly by humans. Most is used to make corn ethanol, animal feed and other maize products, such as corn starch and corn syrup.


title: Maize

text: Maize is a leafy stalk whose kernels have seeds inside. It is an angiosperm, which means that its seeds are enclosed inside a fruit or shell. It is has long been a staple food by many people in Mexico, Central and South America and parts of Africa. In Europe and the rest of North America, maize is grown mostly for use as animal feed. In Canada and the United States, maize is commonly referred to as "corn".


title: Maize

text: Centuries of cross breeding have produced larger plants, and specialized varieties. Corn has become an important ingredient in American foods through the use of corn starch. People have long eaten sweet corn and popcorn with little processing, and other kinds after processing into flour for making cornbread, tortillas, and other artificial foods.


title: Maize

text: Maize has been a fruitful model organism for research in genetics for many years: see Barbara McClintock. Research has shown that artificial selection developed maize from a Mexican plant called Teosinte.


title: Maize

text: There are five species and many subspecies in the genus. They are all plants similar to the cultivated maize, with less developed cobs. The wild ones are sometimes called teosintes, and they are all native to Mesoamerica.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The Dark Knight is a 2008 British-American superhero movie. It was directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the movie is the second installment of Nolan's "The Dark Knight Trilogy" and a sequel to 2005's "Batman Begins", starring Christian Bale and supported by Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman. In the movie, Bruce Wayne / Batman (Bale), Police Lieutenant James Gordon (Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart) form an alliance to dismantle organized crime in Gotham City, but are menaced by an anarchistic mastermind known as the Joker (Ledger), who seeks to undermine Batman's influence and throw the city into anarchy.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: Nolan's inspiration for the movie was the Joker's comic book debut in 1940, the 1988 graphic novel "The Killing Joke", and the 1996 series "The Long Halloween", which retold Harvey Dent's origin. The "Dark Knight" nickname was first applied to Batman in Batman #1 (1940), in a story written by Bill Finger.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The movie was the first mainstream feature to partially utilize IMAX 70 mm cameras, with Nolan using them for 28 minutes of the movie, including the Joker's first appearance.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: Warner Bros. initially created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Ledger as the Joker. Ledger died on January 22, 2008, some months after he completed filming and six months before the movie's release from a toxic combination of prescription drugs, leading to strong attention from the press and movie-going public.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The movie is known as one of the best movies of its decade and one of the best superhero movies of all time. It got critical praise for its screenplay, visual effects, musical score, themes, performances (particularly Ledger's), cinematography, action sequences and direction. The movie also set numerous records during its theatrical run.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: "The Dark Knight" appeared on 287 critics' top-ten lists, more than any other movie of 2008 with the exception of "WALL-E", and more critics (77) named "The Dark Knight" the best movie released that year. With over $1 billion in revenue worldwide, it became the fourth-highest-grossing movie at the time, and highest-grossing movie of 2008; it also set the record for highest-grossing domestic opening with $158 million, a record it held for three years.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: At the 81st Academy Awards, the movie had eight nominations. It won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor. "The Dark Knight Rises", the final movie in the trilogy, was released on July 20, 2012.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The movie begins with the Joker and his gang of clowns robbing a mob bank. The other clowns shoot each other so that there are fewer people so they can get more money per person. The manager of the bank takes out his shotgun and shoots one of them. The Joker takes off his mask and kills the last clown, leaving all the money for himself. He then drives away in a school bus.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The crime mob in the city is very mad at the Joker for robbing the bank. The Joker comes to them and says he wants to kill Batman. Meanwhile, Gotham city's District Attorney Harvey Dent tries to shut the mob down by tracking down the money. A businessman named Lau finds out about this and takes the money out beforehand and goes to Hong Kong so that he cannot be caught. Batman, whose real name is Bruce Wayne, flies down there himself, kidnaps him, and takes him back to Gotham City.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The Joker says he wants Batman to take his mask off and show the world who he is, and that if he does not, people will die. Commissioner Loeb dies from drinking acid in his drink and the judge that was at the mob trials is killed. The Joker then hires some men to kidnap police officers and take their uniforms. At Loeb's funeral, Joker's men attempt to shoot the mayor. Police officer James Gordon tackles the mayor and is shot and apparently killed.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: Dent then calls a press conference to ask the people there if he should reveal Batman. After they say yes, Dent says that he is Batman and has the police arrest him. They put him on a truck to send him to jail. The Joker and his men drive a truck that badly damages the truck Dent is riding in. The real Batman comes in and attempts to save Dent but wrecks his motorcycle-like Batpod when the Joker stands there, since Batman has a rule that he will not kill anyone. Gordon, who is revealed to have faked his death, arrests the Joker.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: In jail, Batman questions the Joker. The Joker eventually reveals that his men captured Rachel Dawes, Batman's old childhood friend and Dent's girlfriend, and Dent. He has put them in warehouses far away so that Batman cannot save both of them himself. They are near bombs that will go off and kill them. The Joker tells Batman where each person is. Batman goes to save Dawes while Gordon and his men go to rescue Dent. However, when Batman gets to Rachel's location, he only sees Dent, because the Joker switched the addresses. Batman gets Dent out, but the bomb goes off and Dent scars half of his face. Gordon is too late to save Dawes.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The Joker gets out of jail. He gets his phone call and dials a cell phone that is wired to a bomb, which blows up the police station. Afterwards, he visits the hospital where Dent is staying. Dent is driven crazy because of Dawes' death. The Joker frees Dent and tells him to take revenge. Dent goes around flipping coins and decides whether he will kill them or keep them alive. He starts going after the various police people who leaked information to the Joker to make it possible for him to kidnap and kill Dawes.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The Joker then announces that the city is his. The people in charge load up two ferries with people to get them out of the city. The Joker has wired both boats with explosives and has given each boat the detonator to the other one, saying that he will blow up both boats at midnight if one boat does not blow up the other.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: Batman finds the Joker in an abandoned building. He uses a sonar system (created by Lucius Fox) to defeat the Joker's men and stops him from destroying both ferries. He then leaves the Joker hanging. The Joker is very impressed, stating that Batman cannot be corrupted into breaking his own rule. A SWAT team then captures the Joker.


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: At the end of the movie, Batman finds that Dent has kidnapped Gordon's family. When Batman arrives, Dent flips his coin to decide their fates. Before he can see the result of his next coin flip, Batman tackles Dent off the edge of the building, letting the vigilante plummet to his death. With Dent dead, Gordon says that if word gets out that Dent killed all these people, all the work he did will have been lost. Batman offers to take the blame for all the murders. Gordon, who is originally against it, agrees. He destroys the Bat-Signal and orders the police to hunt Batman down. Batman takes off into the night while Gordon's son does not understand the reasoning for why Batman must be hunted. But Gordon explains "because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian; a watchful protector; a Dark Knight."


title: The Dark Knight (movie)

text: The movie was filmed in Chicago and in Hong Kong. Some scenes were shot in London. During the filming in Chicago, Nolan decided to blow-up an abandoned Brach's candy factory (which was Gotham Hospital in the movie).


title: Address

text: An address (pronounced AD-dress or ad-DRESS) is a way to find or communicate with someone. It can be a postal address or an e-mail address. On forms, it is common to ask for someone's name, address and phone number, so that the person can be found easily.


title: Address

text: A postal address is usually the location of someone's house, but sometimes it is the person's Post Office Box. It is the information that is put on a letter to have the letter delivered to a person.


title: Address

text: An email address is used to send someone an e-mail. It has a username, and this is followed by the name of the person's email provider. The at sign (@) separates the two. For example:


title: Address

text: The "name" part can be made up of any letters or numbers, and a few special characters, but it cannot contain spaces. The "provider" part can be made up of any letters or numbers, but no special characters and no spaces. Some providers may restrict the "name" part in other ways. For example, Gmail does not allow underscores.


title: Karma

text: Karma is a word meaning the result of a person's actions as well as the actions themselves. It is a term about the cycle of cause and effect. According to the theory of Karma, what happens to a person, happens because they caused it with their actions. It is an important part of many religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. In Shinto (a religion often syncretised with Buddhism), Karma is interpreted as "Musubi" (むすび), a view of karma is recognized in Shinto as a means of enriching, empowering and life affirming.


title: Karma

text: In terms of spiritual development, Karma is about all that a person has done, is doing and will do. Karma is logically about punishment or reward. It makes a person responsible for their own life, and how they treat other people.


title: Karma

text: The "Theory of Karma" is a major belief in Hinduism, Ayyavazhi, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. All living creatures are responsible for their karma - their actions and the effects of their actions.


title: Karma

text: Karma is often misconstrued as the universal principle of cause and effect. Our actions, both good and bad, come back to us in the future, helping us to learn from life’s lessons and become better people. In religions that include reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.


title: Karma

text: Karma is basically energy. One person throws out energy through thoughts, words and actions, and it comes back, in time, through other people. Karma is the best teacher, forcing people to face the consequences of their own actions and thus improve and refine their behavior, or suffer if they do not. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest spark for spiritual growth. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and unemotional response.


title: Karma

text: Supporting any action, with the claim, "I am doing it," is karma. Claiming doership of any action, binds karma. To support the action with the belief 'I am the doer' is called binding the karma. It is this support of the belief of 'doership' that binds karma. If you know that you are not the doer and are aware of who the true doer is, 'I am not the doer' and 'who is the doer' then the action will not have any support and the karma will be shed.


title: Karma

text: The process of action and reaction on all levels—physical, mental and spiritual—is karma. One must pay attention to thoughts, because thought can make karmas—good, bad and mixed.


title: Karma

text: “I say kind words to you, and you feel peaceful and happy. I say harsh words to you, and you become ruffled and upset. The kindness and the harshness will return to me, through others, at a later time. Finally, what I give is what I get back.”


title: Karma

text: “An architect thinks creative, productive thoughts while drawing plans for a new building. But were he to think destructive, unproductive thoughts, he would soon not be able to accomplish any kind of positive task even if he desired to do so.”


title: Karma

text: Hindus look at time as a circle, as things cycle around again. Karma is a very just law which, like gravity, treats everyone the same. The law of karma puts man at the center of responsibility for everything he does and everything that is done to him. Understanding the way karma works, Hindus try to live a virtuous life. This is called dharma.


title: Karma

text: Karma is considered one of the natural laws of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Just as God created gravity to bring order to the physical world, He created karma as a divine system of justice that is self-governing and infinitely fair. It automatically creates the appropriate future experience in response to the current action.


title: Karma

text: Several different views exist in Hinduism regarding the role of divine beings. In Hinduism, many see the deities or devas as playing some kind of role. Other Hindus, such as the Mimamsakas, reject such notions and see karma as acting independently, considering the natural laws of causation sufficient to explain the effects of karma.


title: Karma

text: Some interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita suggest an intermediate view, that karma is a law of cause and effect yet God can mitigate karma for His devotees. It is said in Bhagavad Gita that only the karma that is done with a sense of doership and with attachment to the karma could cause good or bad reactions. Karma that is done with an attitude of duty and without attachment to the results will not create any effect and will move one closer to God.


title: Karma

text: Another view holds that a Satguru, acting on God's behalf, can mitigate or work out some of the karma of the disciple.


title: Outer space

text: Space, also known as outer space, is the near-vacuum between celestial bodies. It is where everything (all of the planets, stars, galaxies and other objects) is found.


title: Outer space

text: On Earth, space begins at the Kármán line (100 km above sea level). This is where Earth's atmosphere is said to stop and outer space begins. This is not a natural boundary but is a convention used by scientists and diplomats.


title: Outer space

text: However, the space near Earth is quite crowded by astronomical standards. A list of spaces goes like this:


title: Outer space

text: Exploring space is very difficult because it contains no air and is so large that even the fastest ships can only explore a tiny part of it. It takes 3 days of traveling to reach the Moon and, depending on speed, it would take a long time to reach the closest star Proxima Centauri.


title: Outer space

text: Manned spacecraft are designed to keep good air inside them and to protect astronauts from extreme temperatures.


title: Outer space

text: We gain most of our information about the items in space from different kinds of telescopes. Some of them are space telescopes, put in outer space for a better view. Space probes also explore planets, comets and other space objects that are not too far.


title: Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque

text: Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque (built 1192 - 1316) Quwwat-ul-Islam was sponsored by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, founder of the Mamluk dynasty. The Quwwat-ul-Islam is best known for its tower of victory, celebrating the Muslim conquest of India. It is the earliest extant mosque built by the [[Delhi Sultanate](after demolishing vishnu temple)]. It consists of a rectangular courtyard enclosed by cloisters. Perhaps it was the first monument of iconoclast in [[India]]. It is in contradiction to [[Hasan Nizami]]'s account of Aibak as peaceful and 'Lakh Baksh' or 'giver of lakhs' in his book Taj-ul-Masir. It is said he was generous and spent huge sums in charity. But it may also be that the monument was hurriedly built with the building material from the temple as Aibak had not established himself firmly in India at that time.


title: Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque

text: The Quwwat-ul-Islam is best known for its tower of victory, celebrating the Muslim conquest of India. It is built of red sandstone, gray quartz, and white marble, but is probably inspired by the “Iron Pillar " that stands on the site. Built in the Gupta dynasty in the 6th century, it is the only piece of the temple that stands in its original location. Qutb built around it when he constructed the mosque. Although made of iron, it has resisted rust for over 1,500 years, evidence of the Gupta’s superb metallurgical skills.


title: Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque

text: Later, a lofty arched screen was erected and the mosque was enlarged, by Shams-ud- Din Iltutmish (A.D. 1210 - 1235) and Ala-ud-Din Khalji. The Iron Pillar in the courtyard bears an inscription in Sanskrit in Brahmi script of fourth century A.D., according to which the pillar was set up as a Vishnudhvaja (standard of god Vishnu) on the hill known as Vishnupada in memory of a mighty king named Chandra. A deep socket on the top of the ornate capital indicates that probably an image of Garuda was fixed into it.


title: Orgasm

text: An orgasm is a sexual climax (or high point). An orgasm happens because of continued sexual touching. During an orgasm, there is a strong feeling of excitement and pleasure. Sexual touching may be sexual intercourse, rubbing or squeezing by hand (called masturbation), or other actions that make the sex organs feel good.


title: Orgasm

text: During an orgasm, a person's body sometimes spasms (shakes or trembles), and the person may appear to be in pain or get a strange look on their face.


title: Orgasm

text: The person's brain activity changes quickly. The parts of the brain responsible for fear, worry and self-control become less active. Many people moan, shout or say strange things during orgasm. Usually, people's minds focus almost completely on the pleasure of the orgasm, and become less aware of what is going on around them than usual.


title: Orgasm

text: The penis usually becomes erect (hard) before an orgasm, and flaccid (soft) again after. When a man has an orgasm, his penis spasms and undergoes a series of rhythmic contractions, during which he feels a very strong and enjoyable feeling in his penis and groin, and sometimes in all of his body. In a man, an orgasm usually happens at the same time as an ejaculation, which is a release of semen through the penis that can't be stopped. Young boys can orgasm, but there may be no semen because semen release usually occurs (happens) only after puberty has started. After an orgasm, men usually have a deep sense of relaxation, usually felt in the groin and the thighs. Usually the stronger the orgasm is, the deeper the relaxation and the longer the relaxation will last.


title: Orgasm

text: A woman's orgasm begins in her clitoris, which is the counterpart of the man's penis. It is preceded by an erection of the clitoris and a moistening of the opening of the vagina. When a woman goes through a full orgasm, her uterus, vagina, anus and pelvic muscles undergo a series of rhythmic contractions. Most women find these contractions very pleasurable. Rubbing or applying other consistent pressure against the clitoris is usually needed to help the woman have an orgasm.


title: Orgasm

text: Orgasm plays an important role in human reproduction. It is the most exciting moment of sexual intercourse, so it is an important factor that makes men and women want to have intercourse, which allows reproduction to happen. It is also the moment at which the man releases semen into the woman to begin the process of fertilization.


title: Orgasm

text: During sexual intercourse, a man places his penis inside a woman's vagina and moves it backwards and forwards. The woman may also move her hips back and forth, or in a circular motion. The friction caused by this movement, together with the warmth and pressure of the vagina, causes the man to have pleasurable feelings in his penis. As intercourse continues, these feelings grow stronger and stronger until the man has an orgasm and ejaculates, at which time semen then shoots out from the end of his penis into the woman's vagina. The semen can make the woman pregnant.


title: Orgasm

text: The woman may also have one or more orgasms during intercourse as well. Unlike a man, who usually can have only one orgasm during intercourse, a woman may have more than one. During intercourse she may rub her clitoris, or she may have her man do so. This can make the woman have an orgasm. The shaft of the penis may also stimulate the clitoris in some positions. Scientists are not sure why women have orgasms. Some believe that the orgasm helps the sperm in the man's semen to swim up the vagina into the cervix, so that it is more likely that a sperm cell will fuse with an egg cell. Others think that the woman's orgasm is designed to help make the man reach orgasm. During her orgasm, a woman may moan, cry, or scream, which usually excites her man, and her vagina may contract, gripping the penis more tightly and making sex more exciting for him. These reactions may cause the man to ejaculate more quickly or to produce more semen; when a woman reaches orgasm during intercourse, it often makes her man have an orgasm at that point as well. Orgasm may also encourage a woman to have sex more often as it feels good, increasing the chances of pregnancy.


title: Sunflower

text: The sunflower ("Helianthus annuus") is a living annual plant in the family Asteraceae, with a large flower head ("capitulum"). The stem of the flower can grow up to 3 metres tall, with a flower head that can be 30 cm wide. Other types of sunflowers include the California Royal Sunflower, which has a burgundy (red + purple) flower head.


title: Sunflower

text: The flower head is actually an inflorescence made of hundreds or thousands of tiny flowers called florets. The central florets look like the centre of a normal flower, apseudanthium. The benefit to the plant is that it is very easily seen by the insects and birds which pollinate it, and it produces thousands of seeds.


title: Sunflower

text: The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas. That is why Kansas is sometimes called the Sunflower State.


title: Sunflower

text: To grow well, sunflowers need full sun. They grow best in fertile, wet, well-drained soil with a lot of mulch. In commercial planting, seeds are planted 45 cm (1.5 ft) apart and 2.5 cm (1 in) deep.


title: Sunflower

text: The outer petal-bearing florets are the sterile florets and can be yellow, red, orange, or other colors. The florets inside the circular head are called disc florets, which mature into seeds.


title: Sunflower

text: The flower petals within the sunflower's cluster are always in a spiral pattern. Generally, each floret is oriented toward the next by approximately the golden angle, 137.5°, producing a pattern of interconnecting spirals, where the number of left spirals and the number of right spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers. Typically, there are 34 spirals in one direction and 55 in the other; on a very large sunflower there could be 89 in one direction and 144 in the other.


title: Sunflower

text: Sunflowers commonly grow to heights between 1.5 and 3.5 m (5–12 ft.). The tallest sunflower confirmed by Guinness World Records is 9.17 m (2014, Germany). In 16th century Europe the record was already 7.3 m (24 ft., Spain). Most cultivars are variants of "H. annuus", but four other species (all perennials) are also domesticated. This includes "H. tuberosus", the Jerusalem Artichoke, which produces edible tubers.


title: Sunflower

text: Sunflower "whole seed" (fruit) are sold as a snack food, after roasting in ovens, with or without salt added. Sunflowers can be processed into a peanut butter alternative, Sunbutter. In Germany, it is mixed together with rye flour to make Sonnenblumenkernbrot (literally: sunflower whole seed bread), which is quite popular in German-speaking Europe. It is also sold as food for birds and can be used directly in cooking and salads.


title: Sunflower

text: Sunflower oil, extracted from the seeds, is used for cooking, as a carrier oil and to produce margarine and biodiesel, as it is cheaper than olive oil. A range of sunflower varieties exist with differing fatty acid compositions; some 'high oleic' types contain a higher level of healthy monounsaturated fats in their oil than Olive oil.


title: Sunflower

text: The cake remaining after the seeds have been processed for oil is used as a livestock feed. Some recently developed cultivars have drooping heads. These cultivars are less attractive to gardeners growing the flowers as ornamental plants, but appeal to farmers, because they reduce bird damage and losses from some plant diseases. Sunflowers also produce latex and are the subject of experiments to improve their suitability as an alternative crop for producing hypoallergenic rubber.


title: Sunflower

text: Traditionally, several Native American groups planted sunflowers on the north edges of their gardens as a "fourth sister" to the better known three sisters combination of corn, beans, and squash.[9] Annual species are often planted for their allelopathic properties. However, for commercial farmers growing commodity crops, the sunflower, like any other unwanted plant, is often considered a weed. Especially in the midwestern USA, wild (perennial) species are often found in corn and soybean fields and can have a negative impact on yields.


title: Sunflower

text: Sunflowers may also be used to extract toxic ingredients from soil, such as lead, arsenic and uranium. They were used to remove uranium, cesium-137, and strontium-90 from soil after the Chernobyl disaster (see phytoremediation).


title: ß

text: The letter ß (also known as sharp S, German: "Eszett" or "scharfes S") is a letter in the German alphabet. It is the only German letter that is not part of the basic Latin alphabet. The letter is pronounced (like the "s" in "see") and is not used in any other language.


title: ß

text: Today's "ß" was created around the 1900s. (See w:en:ß and w:de:ß for details on the so-called "Sulzbacher Form".) It has two origins, one in Blackletter and one in Roman type (also called Antiqua).


title: ß

text: The letter came from the long s ("ſ") and the normal "z". Written fast by hand, they over time joined together to form a single glyph.


title: ß

text: The "ß" is used only in German and never at the start of German words. The uppercase "ß" ("ẞ") exists only for typesetting, such as in a dictionary. Instead of lowercase "ß", one can also write "ss". As no words start with double "s" or "ß", no uppercase "ß" is necessary.


title: ß

text: However, not every "ss" can be written as "ß". German often puts two or more words together to make a longer word. If the new word has "ss", it cannot be written as "ß". For example, "Voßstraße" is two words joined together ("Voß" and "straße"). It can also be written as Vossstraße but not as "Vosßtraße" because "sstraße" (or "ßtraße") is not a word, and the "ß" is in the word "Voss" ("Voß").


title: ß

text: The rules for German orthography have changed since 1996. Many common words that used to be written with "ß" are now written with "ss". For example, "Fluß" (river) is spelled "Fluss". When the preceding vowel is short, as in "Fluss", "ss" is used. However, the "ß" is used when the preceding vowel is long as in "Straße".


title: Squash (plant)

text: Squashes are a kind of vegetables. They originally came from the New World. Gourds are in the same family as squashes. Pumpkins and Zucchini (courgette) are types of squashes. Although squash is a fruit according to its botanical classification, it is generally considered a vegetable in food preparation.


title: Squash (plant)

text: The English word "squash" comes from askutasquash (which means "a green thing eaten raw"). This is a word from the Narragansett language, which was documented by Roger Williams in his 1643 publication "A Key Into the Language of America". There are similar words for squash in related languages of the Algonquian family such as Massachusett.


title: Squash (plant)

text: The squash has been an important crop in the Andes mountains since the pre-Columbian Era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from earth, water, and fire. This pottery was used to represent important themes. Squash are a popular shape in Moche ceramics.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: This article is about the fictional from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth universe. It includes major regions of the world, geographical features such as rivers, mountains and mountain ranges. The article also included selection of various notable places which were created by Tolkien and used as setting in his many books.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Arnor was a human realm in Eriador. It was founded by Elendil and his people, who survived the Fall of Númenor near the end of the Second Age. The peoples living in Arnor were the descendants of the Númenorean survivors, and the indigenous human peoples who had lived there before. The capital of Arnor was the city Annúminas. It was on the shores of Lake Evendim in northern Eriador. Elendil was the first King of Arnor. After his death, his older son Isildur became king.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: After the death of Eärendur, the tenth king, in T.A. 861, his three sons split Arnor into three new lands. Each land a country ruled by one of the sons. These countries were: Arthedain in the west, Cardolan in the south, and Rhudaur in the north. Over time, all three of countries were destroyed in wars against the northern land Angmar. After the War of the Ring, the land again became part of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor. It as ruled by King Elessar Telcontar and his descendants.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Bree-land is a small region in Eriador, It surrounded the Breehill. The region has four villages. They are : Bree , Archet, Combe and Staddle. The peoples living in the villages of Bree-land are humans and hobbits; This is the only place where these two people live together. The only other place where hobbits live is the Shire. Bree is at the meeting point of two large roads, the Great East Road and the North-South Road. It is an important center of trade and travel.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: The Lonely Mountain (Sindarin: "Erebor)" is a mountain in the northeast of Rhovanion. When the dwarves had to leave their ancient home Khazad-dûm, it became the new home of Durin's folk. They were led by Thráin I, who became "King under the Mountain". Later Erebor was attacked by the dragon Smaug, and the dwarves had to flee again. In the story told in "The Hobbit", the dragon Smaug is killed and the dwarves again return to the Lonely Mountain. Dáin II Ironfoot becomes new King under the Mountain.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Esgaroth is a town in the northeast of Rhovanion. It is also known as Lake-town It is built at the Long Lake. the town is south of the Lonely Mountain and east of Mirkwood. It was destroyed by the dragon Smaug during the events of "The Hobbit" but was rebuilt.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Fangorn or Fangorn Forest is a large forest on the eastern side of the southern end of the Misty Mountains. Fangorn is the home of the Ents. They are a people of giant tree-like beings. The Sindarin word "Fangorn" translates to "Beardtree", Fangoen is also the Sindarin name of the Ent Treebeard.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Gondor is a human realm in southeastern Middle-earth. It was founded by the brothers Isildur and Anárion and their people, who had survived the Fall of Númenor near the end of the Second Age. During the Third Age, Gondor included the lands beween the sea in the south, the Mountains of Shadow in the east, and the White Mountains in the north. In earlier times, The lands of Gondor reached farther north. The city Osgiliath was the capital of Gondor. It was built over the river Anduin. Isildur also founded the city Minas Ithil. His brother Anárion founded the city Minas Anor west of the Anduin on the mountain Mindolluin.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Gondor has several regions. Ithilien is in the east, It is between the river Anduin in the west and the Mountains of Shadow in the east. Anórien was a small land north of the White Mountains. It is between the river Anduin in the east and Rohan in the west. Calenardhon is the land north of the White Mountains. It became Rohan in the 26th century T.A. Enedwaith was northwest of the White Mountains. This region was mostly abandoned in the later part of the Third Age. Between the coast and the White Mountains were several smaller regions. Near the seashore in the south were the regions Anfalas, Belfalas, Dor-en-Ernil, Lebennin, and Lossarnach. Along the Mountains in the north were the Morthond Vale, Lamedon, and the Ringló Vale. Southeast of the Anduin was the region South Gondor.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: After the "War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men" against Sauron, Isildur left to rule the northern kingdom Arnor. The son of Anárion stayed to rule Gondor. During a civil war In the 15th century, the city Osgiliath was destroyed. Minas Anor became the new capital. The Ringwraiths captured Minas Ithil during the rule of King Eärnur. They changed the name of the city to Minas Morgul. Minas Anor was renamed Minas Tirith ("Tower of Guard"). Both cities were always at war. Much of the fighting took place near the old capital of Osgiliath. During the War of the Ring, Sauron won control of Western Osgiliath. This made it possible for his forces to attack Minas Tirith. The Orcs attacked the city but were stopped by the Rohirrim. This let the defenders to charge the enemy. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields was won by the Men of Gondor and Rohan.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: The last King, Eärnur, disappeared in 2050 T.A. After this, Gondor was ruled by the "Stewards of Gondor" instead of a king until the end of the Third Age. After the War of the Ring, the land became part of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor. It was ruled by King Elessar Telcontar and his descendants.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: The Great East Road is an ancient road which was made by the dwarves. The road ran from western area of the region Beleriand, over the Ered Luin mountain range, through the Shire, to the Misty Mountains, and to the dwarven lands in the east.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Helm's Deep is a deep valley on the north side of the western part of the White Mountains. It is south to the Gap of Rohan. The valley was blocked by a series of hills called Helm's Dike. Helm's Deep is the location of the fortress, Hornburg. The entrance to the Glittering Caves is at the end of the valley.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Isengard is a fortress at the southern end of the Misty Mountains. It is in a small valley inside a ring-shaped wall. The wall is called, the Ring of Isengard. In the fortress is a tall black tower, Orthanc. Isengard belonged to Gondor but in the 28th century it was given to Saruman. The fortress has a palantír. A palantir is ball made of indestructible crystal that is used for communicating with other places. In the War of the Ring, ring-wall was destroyed by the Ents. After the War, the tower Orthanc was given back to King Elessar and the Reunited Kingdom.


title: Middle-earth locations

text: Khazad-dûm was the ancient home of the Dwarves under the Misty Mountains. It was a large underground city. It also has a system of mines under it. The city was the only place in Middle-earth where the precious metal "mithril" could be found. This made the dwarves very rich. Khazad-dûm was founded by Durin the Deathless early in the First Age.