First World War, he became the subject of anti-German attacks in the Press. In 1921, the British government investigated accusations that Speyer had traded with the enemy during the war, and had participated in other wartime conduct incompatible with his British citizenship. Speyer denied the charges, but his naturalisation was revoked and he was struck off the list of members of the Privy Council. (more...
arati songs, associated with rituals of offering light to the deity. Though the origins of both his cult and his main temple remain subjects of debate, there is clear evidence that they already existed by the 13th century. (more...
genre with another. Criticisms of the game centered on crippling software bugs and lack of an in-game save feature. The critics also rated its console version as technically inferior to its PC versions. The game sold poorly for both Windows and PlayStation 2, although it enjoyed a successful launch for its small Mac OS X market. (more...
Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped newly-freed slaves find work. When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid on the Combahee River, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. (more...
symphonies. The family moved on to Holland, where the schedule of performances was interrupted by the illnesses of both children, but Wolfgang continued to compose prolifically. (more...
Lazare Ponticelli (1897–2008) was the longest-surviving officially recognized veteran of the First World War from France and the last poilu of its trenches to die. Born in Italy, he moved to France in 1906, and lied about his age to join the French Army in 1914. Italy entered the War in 1915, and subsequently Ponticelli was transferred to its army when authorities discovered his true ancestry. After the War, he and his brothers founded the piping and metal work company "Ponticelli Frères" ("Ponticelli Brothers"), which produced supplies for the Second World War effort and as of 2009 is still in business. Ponticelli was the oldest living man of Italian birth and the oldest man living in France. Every Armistice Day until 2007, he attended ceremonies honoring deceased veterans. In his later years, he criticized war and stored his bravery awards from the First World War in a shoe box. While he felt unworthy of the state funeral the French government offered him, he eventually accepted one. However he asked for the emphasis of the procession to be on the common soldiers who died on the battlefield. (more...)
fan of anime and manga, and his friend Largo, an American video game enthusiast. The comic often parodies and comments on the archetypes and clichés of anime, manga, dating sims and video games, occasionally making direct references to real-world works. Megatokyo originally emphasized humor, with continuity of the story a subsidiary concern. Over time, it focused more on developing a complex plot and the personalities of its characters. This transition was due primarily to Gallagher's increasing control over the comic, which led to Caston choosing to leave the project. (more...
marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It is regarded as one of Steinbeck's most important works of non-fiction chiefly because of the involvement of Ricketts, who shaped Steinbeck's thinking and provided the prototype for many of the pivotal characters in his fiction, and the insights it gives into the philosophies of the two men. The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the narrative portion of an unsuccessful earlier work, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, which was published by Steinbeck and Ricketts shortly after their return from the Gulf of California, and combined the journals of the collecting expedition, reworked by Steinbeck, with Ricketts' species catalogue. After Ricketts' death in 1948, Steinbeck dropped the species catalogue from the earlier work and republished it with a eulogy to his friend added as a foreword. (more...
The Chaser APEC pranks constituted a series of comic stunts that targeted the 2007 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Summit, which occurred from 2–9 September, in Sydney, Australia. They were coordinated and performed by the Australian satire group The Chaser for the television series The Chaser's War on Everything. The most prominent prank was the breach of an APEC restricted zone in the heart of Sydney's CBD on 6 September. Julian Morrow directed a fake Canadian motorcade, which was allowed through the restricted zone by police and not detected until Chas Licciardello alighted, dressed as Osama bin Laden. Although pranks that involved public locations, figures, and organisations were always a feature of the series, the APEC pranks yielded unprecedented local and international publicity, both positive and negative. Some team members faced charges for breaching the APEC zone, but these were dropped because police had allowed their entry in the restricted zone. Other less controversial and less publicised stunts were also shown on The Chaser's War on Everything, with ratings peaking at almost three million Australian viewers for the APEC wrap-up episode. (more...)
Saigon and relieve him. The coup failed when the Fifth and Seventh Divisions of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam entered Saigon and defeated the rebels. More than four hundred people—many of whom were spectating civilians—were killed in the ensuing battle. Dong and Thi fled to Cambodia, while Diem excoriated the United States for a perceived lack of support during the crisis. Afterwards, Diem ordered a crackdown, imprisoning numerous anti-government critics and former cabinet ministers. (more...
Communication and synchronization between the different subtasks are typically one of the greatest obstacles to getting good parallel program performance. The speed-up of a program as a result of parallelization is given by Amdahl's law. (more...
parboiling, recent evidence suggests that even this procedure may not make the fungus entirely safe; thus raising concerns of risk even when prepared properly. When consumed, the false morel's principal active agent, gyromitrin, is metabolized into the toxic compound monomethylhydrazine. The toxin affects the liver, central nervous system, and sometimes the kidneys. (more...
Manchester City Centre is now on a tentative list of UNESCOWorld Heritage Sites, mainly due to the network of canals and mills constructed during its 19th-century development. (more...
1.e4, while Hans Berliner argued that 1.d4 may win for White. Since 1988, chess theorists have challenged previously well-established views about White's advantage. GrandmasterAndrás Adorján wrote a series of books on the theme that "Black is OK!", arguing that the general perception that White has an advantage is founded more in psychology than reality. (more...
Soviet film, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, which is renowned for having been suppressed and believed destroyed before its completion. It tells the story of a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by sabotaging the year's harvest, and of the son's efforts to stop his own father to protect the Soviet state, and culminates in the boy's murder and a social uprising. The film draws its title from a story by Ivan Turgenev, but is based on the life of Pavlik Morozov, a young Russian boy who became a political martyr following his death in 1932 after he denounced his father to Soviet government authorities and subsequently died at the hands of his family. Commissioned by a Communist youth group, the film's production ran from 1935 to 1937, when it was halted by the central Soviet government for alleged artistic, social, and political failures in the film's content. Some, however, blamed the failure of Bezhin Meadow on government interference and policies extending all the way to Joseph Stalin himself. Bezhin Meadow was long thought lost in the wake of World War II bombings. In the 1960s, however, cuttings and partial prints of the film were found; and from these, a reconstruction of Bezhin Meadow, based on the original script, was undertaken. (more...
Ceres's point of view, Shelley emphasises the separation of mother and daughter and the strength offered by a community of women. Ceres represents life and love, and Pluto represents death and violence. The genres of the text also reflect gender debates of the time. Proserpine is part of a female literary tradition which, as feminist literary criticSusan Gubar describes it, has used the story of Ceres and Proserpine to "re-define, to re-affirm and to celebrate female consciousness itself". However, the play has been both neglected and marginalised by critics. (more...
US XVIII Airborne Corps: the British 6th Airborne Division and the US 17th Airborne Division. Despite some errors by the airborne forces, the operation was an overall success, with both divisions landing and capturing a number of bridges across the Rhine and securing several towns which could have been used by the enemy to delay the advance of the British ground forces. The two divisions incurred more than 2,000 casualties, but captured approximately 3,000 German soldiers in the process. The operation was the last large-scale Allied airborne operation of World War II, and was the largest single airborne drop in history. (more...
Lipulekh (or Lipulech) in Uttarakhand. Sealed by India after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, it was re-opened in 2006 following numerous bilateral trade agreements. The opening of the pass is expected to bolster the economy of the region and play a key role in the growing Sino-Indian trade. Currently, agreements between the two nations limit trade across the pass to the export of 29 types of goods from India and import of 15 from the Chinese side. The opening also shortens the travel distance to important Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the region. (more...
Indian Department; his letter was the first the department had ever received from an Indian. This brought him into contact with Superintendent of the Indian Department James Givins and influential Bishop John Strachan, with whom he arranged the funding and support of the Credit Mission. (more...
Métis people, an outlet for their furs and a source of supplies other than the Hudson's Bay Company, which was unable to enforce its monopoly in the face of the competition that used the trails. Free traders, independent of the Hudson's Bay Company and outside its jurisdiction, developed extensive commerce with the United States, making Saint Paul the principal entrepôt and link to the outside world for the Selkirk Settlement. That corridor has now seen a resurgence of traffic, carried by more modern means of transport than the crude ox carts that once travelled the Red River Trails. (more...
proton-proton chain. Above this mass, in the upper main sequence, the nuclear fusion process mainly uses atoms of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen as intermediaries in the production of helium from hydrogen atoms. Main sequence stars below 0.4 solar masses undergo convection throughout their mass. In general, the more massive the star the shorter its lifespan on the main sequence. (more...
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