Friday 31 March 2017

Nominative determinism

Nominative determinism.
Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people are drawn to professions that fit their name. The term was first used in the magazine New Scientist in 1994, after its humorous Feedback column mentioned a book on polar explorations by Daniel Snowman and an article on urology by researchers named Splatt and Weedon. The hypothesis had been suggested by psychologist Carl Jung, citing as an example Sigmund Freud (German for "joy"), who studied pleasure. A few recent empirical studies have indicated that certain professions are disproportionately represented by people with appropriate surnames, though the methods of these studies have been challenged. One explanation for nominative determinism is the theory of implicit egotism, which states that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves. An alternative explanation is genetic: an ancestor might have been named Smith or Taylor according to their occupation, and the genes they passed down might correlate to aptitudes for those professions.

Nominative determinism

Nominative determinism.
Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people are drawn to professions that fit their name. The term was first used in the magazine New Scientist in 1994, after its humorous Feedback column mentioned a book on polar explorations by Daniel Snowman and an article on urology by researchers named Splatt and Weedon. The hypothesis had been suggested by psychologist Carl Jung, citing as an example Sigmund Freud (German for "joy"), who studied pleasure. A few recent empirical studies have indicated that certain professions are disproportionately represented by people with appropriate surnames, though the methods of these studies have been challenged. One explanation for nominative determinism is the theory of implicit egotism, which states that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves. An alternative explanation is genetic: an ancestor might have been named Smith or Taylor according to their occupation, and the genes they passed down might correlate to aptitudes for those professions.

Thursday 30 March 2017

Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar

Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar.
The Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar is a commemorative coin that was authorized on March 31, 1936, and struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint that year. Produced with the stated purpose of commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Cincinnati as a center of music, it was conceived by Thomas G. Melish, a coin enthusiast whose group bought the entire issue from the government, and who resold them at high prices. Melish had hired sculptor Constance Ortmayer to design the coin, but the Commission of Fine Arts objected to Stephen Foster being on the obverse, finding no connection between Foster, who died in 1864, and the supposed anniversary. Nevertheless, 5,000 sets of three coins, one from each of the three mints, were issued and sold to Melish's group, the only authorized purchaser. He likely held back much of the issue for later resale, and with few pieces available, prices spiked to over five times the issue price. The coins are still valuable today. Melish has been assailed by numismatic writers as greedy.

Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar

Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar.
The Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar is a commemorative coin that was authorized on March 31, 1936, and struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint that year. Produced with the stated purpose of commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Cincinnati as a center of music, it was conceived by Thomas G. Melish, a coin enthusiast whose group bought the entire issue from the government, and who resold them at high prices. Melish had hired sculptor Constance Ortmayer to design the coin, but the Commission of Fine Arts objected to Stephen Foster being on the obverse, finding no connection between Foster, who died in 1864, and the supposed anniversary. Nevertheless, 5,000 sets of three coins, one from each of the three mints, were issued and sold to Melish's group, the only authorized purchaser. He likely held back much of the issue for later resale, and with few pieces available, prices spiked to over five times the issue price. The coins are still valuable today. Melish has been assailed by numismatic writers as greedy.

Wednesday 29 March 2017

Juan Manuel de Rosas

Juan Manuel de Rosas.
Juan Manuel de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877) was an army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Like other wealthy provincial warlords, Rosas enlisted rural workers from his landholdings in a private militia, and took part in the numerous disputes and civil wars in his country. He eventually became the undisputed leader of the Argentine army and the Federalist Party. In 1831, he signed the Federal Pact, recognizing provincial autonomy and creating the Argentine Confederation. He established a dictatorship and formed the repressive Mazorca, an armed parapolice that killed thousands of citizens. By 1848, after a war against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation, a blockade by France, and a revolt in his own province, he ruled all of Argentina, and was attempting to annex the neighboring nations of Uruguay and Paraguay. When the Empire of Brazil came to Uruguay's aid, Rosas declared war in August 1851. The short Platine War ended with the defeat of Rosas and his flight to Britain. His last years were spent in exile living as a tenant farmer.

Juan Manuel de Rosas

Juan Manuel de Rosas.
Juan Manuel de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877) was an army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Like other wealthy provincial warlords, Rosas enlisted rural workers from his landholdings in a private militia, and took part in the numerous disputes and civil wars in his country. He eventually became the undisputed leader of the Argentine army and the Federalist Party. In 1831, he signed the Federal Pact, recognizing provincial autonomy and creating the Argentine Confederation. He established a dictatorship and formed the repressive Mazorca, an armed parapolice that killed thousands of citizens. By 1848, after a war against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation, a blockade by France, and a revolt in his own province, he ruled all of Argentina, and was attempting to annex the neighboring nations of Uruguay and Paraguay. When the Empire of Brazil came to Uruguay's aid, Rosas declared war in August 1851. The short Platine War ended with the defeat of Rosas and his flight to Britain. His last years were spent in exile living as a tenant farmer.

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Boise National Forest

Boise National Forest.
Boise National Forest is a federally protected area of the U.S. state of Idaho in the national forest system. Created in 1908 from part of Sawtooth National Forest, it is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The Idaho Batholith underlies most of Boise National Forest, forming its Boise, Salmon River, and West mountain ranges; the forest reaches a maximum elevation of 9,730 feet (2,970 m) on Steel Mountain. Common land cover includes sagebrush steppe and spruce-fir forests. It contains 75 percent of the known populations of Sacajawea's bitterroot, a flowering plant endemic to Idaho. The Shoshone people occupied the forest before European settlers, and archeological sites have been found along rivers in the area. Trappers and fur traders of European descent arrived in the area in the early 1800s, starting with John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company in 1811. The first settlers moved into the mountains in the 1860s after gold was discovered. The gold rush forced many of the Shoshone out and led to conflicts including the Bannock War in southern Idaho. Tungsten, silver, antimony, and gold were mined in the forest until the mid-twentieth century.

Boise National Forest

Boise National Forest.
Boise National Forest is a federally protected area of the U.S. state of Idaho in the national forest system. Created in 1908 from part of Sawtooth National Forest, it is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The Idaho Batholith underlies most of Boise National Forest, forming its Boise, Salmon River, and West mountain ranges; the forest reaches a maximum elevation of 9,730 feet (2,970 m) on Steel Mountain. Common land cover includes sagebrush steppe and spruce-fir forests. It contains 75 percent of the known populations of Sacajawea's bitterroot, a flowering plant endemic to Idaho. The Shoshone people occupied the forest before European settlers, and archeological sites have been found along rivers in the area. Trappers and fur traders of European descent arrived in the area in the early 1800s, starting with John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company in 1811. The first settlers moved into the mountains in the 1860s after gold was discovered. The gold rush forced many of the Shoshone out and led to conflicts including the Bannock War in southern Idaho. Tungsten, silver, antimony, and gold were mined in the forest until the mid-twentieth century.

Sunday 26 March 2017

Mayabazar

Mayabazar.
Mayabazar (Market of Illusions) is an Indian epic fantasy film directed by Kadiri Venkata Reddy and produced by B. Nagi Reddy and Aluri Chakrapani, first released on 27 March 1957. The film was shot in Telugu and Tamil with the same title, but with a few differences in the cast. The story is an adaptation of the folk tale Sasirekha Parinayam, which in turn is based on the epic Mahabharata. It tells the story of Krishna (N. T. Rama Rao) and Ghatotkacha (S. V. Ranga Rao), who try to reunite Arjuna's son Abhimanyu with his love, Balarama's daughter (Savitri). Though Rama Rao was initially reluctant to play the lead role, his portrayal of Krishna received acclaim and yielded more offers to reprise the same role in several unrelated films. Most of the musical score was composed by Ghantasala. Both versions of the film were critically and commercially successful. The film is considered a landmark in both Telugu and Tamil cinema, with praise for its cast and technical accomplishments, despite the limitations of the technology at the time. A May 2013 CNN-News18 poll listed Mayabazar as the greatest Indian film of all time.

Mayabazar

Mayabazar.
Mayabazar (Market of Illusions) is an Indian epic fantasy film directed by Kadiri Venkata Reddy and produced by B. Nagi Reddy and Aluri Chakrapani, first released on 27 March 1957. The film was shot in Telugu and Tamil with the same title, but with a few differences in the cast. The story is an adaptation of the folk tale Sasirekha Parinayam, which in turn is based on the epic Mahabharata. It tells the story of Krishna (N. T. Rama Rao) and Ghatotkacha (S. V. Ranga Rao), who try to reunite Arjuna's son Abhimanyu with his love, Balarama's daughter (Savitri). Though Rama Rao was initially reluctant to play the lead role, his portrayal of Krishna received acclaim and yielded more offers to reprise the same role in several unrelated films. Most of the musical score was composed by Ghantasala. Both versions of the film were critically and commercially successful. The film is considered a landmark in both Telugu and Tamil cinema, with praise for its cast and technical accomplishments, despite the limitations of the technology at the time. A May 2013 CNN-News18 poll listed Mayabazar as the greatest Indian film of all time.

Saturday 25 March 2017

Interstate 8

Interstate 8.
Interstate 8 (I-8) is an Interstate Highway in the southwestern United States. From the southern edge of Mission Bay in San Diego, California, it runs eastward across the Cuyamaca Mountains and the Imperial Valley. Crossing the Colorado River into Arizona, it continues through the city of Yuma across the Sonoran Desert, to the junction with I-10, between Phoenix and Tucson. The first route over the Cuyamaca Mountains was dedicated in 1912, and a plank road served as the first road across the Imperial Valley to Yuma; east of there, the Gila Trail continued east to Gila Bend. Several controversies erupted during I-8's construction process; questionable labor practices in Imperial County led to the federal conviction of mobster Jimmy Fratianno, and the Arizona government was found to have mismanaged financial resources by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee. The route was completed in 1975 through California, and by 1977 through Arizona, though the bridge over the Colorado River was not completed until 1978. A portion of the freeway in Imperial County had to be rebuilt following damage by the remnants of Hurricane Kathleen.

Interstate 8

Interstate 8.
Interstate 8 (I-8) is an Interstate Highway in the southwestern United States. From the southern edge of Mission Bay in San Diego, California, it runs eastward across the Cuyamaca Mountains and the Imperial Valley. Crossing the Colorado River into Arizona, it continues through the city of Yuma across the Sonoran Desert, to the junction with I-10, between Phoenix and Tucson. The first route over the Cuyamaca Mountains was dedicated in 1912, and a plank road served as the first road across the Imperial Valley to Yuma; east of there, the Gila Trail continued east to Gila Bend. Several controversies erupted during I-8's construction process; questionable labor practices in Imperial County led to the federal conviction of mobster Jimmy Fratianno, and the Arizona government was found to have mismanaged financial resources by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee. The route was completed in 1975 through California, and by 1977 through Arizona, though the bridge over the Colorado River was not completed until 1978. A portion of the freeway in Imperial County had to be rebuilt following damage by the remnants of Hurricane Kathleen.

Friday 24 March 2017

Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)

Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart).
The Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, is a concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for keyboard (period fortepiano pictured) and orchestra. He composed it in the winter of 1785–86 and completed it on 24 March 1786. He played the solo part in the premiere in early April that year at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The work is one of only two minor-key piano concertos by Mozart, the other being No. 20 in D Minor. It features the largest array of instruments of any Mozart concerto: strings, woodwinds including oboes and clarinets, horns, trumpets and timpani. The concerto consists of three movements. The first, Allegro, is in sonata form and is longer than any opening movement of Mozart's earlier concertos. The second movement, Larghetto, features a strikingly simple principal theme, and the final Allegretto presents a theme followed by eight variations. The work is one of Mozart's most advanced compositions in the concerto genre. Early admirers included Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. The musicologist Arthur Hutchings considered it to be Mozart's greatest piano concerto.

Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)

Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart).
The Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, is a concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for keyboard (period fortepiano pictured) and orchestra. He composed it in the winter of 1785–86 and completed it on 24 March 1786. He played the solo part in the premiere in early April that year at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The work is one of only two minor-key piano concertos by Mozart, the other being No. 20 in D Minor. It features the largest array of instruments of any Mozart concerto: strings, woodwinds including oboes and clarinets, horns, trumpets and timpani. The concerto consists of three movements. The first, Allegro, is in sonata form and is longer than any opening movement of Mozart's earlier concertos. The second movement, Larghetto, features a strikingly simple principal theme, and the final Allegretto presents a theme followed by eight variations. The work is one of Mozart's most advanced compositions in the concerto genre. Early admirers included Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. The musicologist Arthur Hutchings considered it to be Mozart's greatest piano concerto.

Thursday 23 March 2017

Oran fatwa

Oran fatwa.
The Oran fatwa was an Islamic legal opinion issued in 1504 to address the forced conversion to Christianity of Muslims in the Crown of Castile in Iberia in 1500–1502. The fatwa sets out detailed relaxations of the sharia (Islamic law) requirements, allowing the Muslims to conform outwardly to Christianity and perform acts that are ordinarily forbidden in Islamic law, when necessary to survive. It includes relaxed instructions to fulfill the ritual prayers, charity and purification, and recommendations for how to handle obligations that violated Islamic law, such as worshipping as Christians, performing blasphemy, and consuming pork and wine. The fatwa enjoyed wide currency in Spain among Muslims and Moriscos – Muslims nominally converted to Christianity and their descendants – from the time of the first forced conversions up to the expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614). The author of the fatwa was Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah, a North African Islamic law scholar (mufti) of the Maliki school.

Oran fatwa

Oran fatwa.
The Oran fatwa was an Islamic legal opinion issued in 1504 to address the forced conversion to Christianity of Muslims in the Crown of Castile in Iberia in 1500–1502. The fatwa sets out detailed relaxations of the sharia (Islamic law) requirements, allowing the Muslims to conform outwardly to Christianity and perform acts that are ordinarily forbidden in Islamic law, when necessary to survive. It includes relaxed instructions to fulfill the ritual prayers, charity and purification, and recommendations for how to handle obligations that violated Islamic law, such as worshipping as Christians, performing blasphemy, and consuming pork and wine. The fatwa enjoyed wide currency in Spain among Muslims and Moriscos – Muslims nominally converted to Christianity and their descendants – from the time of the first forced conversions up to the expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614). The author of the fatwa was Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah, a North African Islamic law scholar (mufti) of the Maliki school.

Wednesday 22 March 2017

SMS Kaiser (1911)

SMS Kaiser (1911).
SMS Kaiser was the lead ship of her class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. The ship was built by the Imperial Dockyard at Kiel, launched on 22 March 1911, and commissioned in August 1912 with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns and a top speed of 23.4 knots (43.3 km/h; 26.9 mph). Kaiser was assigned to the Third Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of World War I. The ship participated in most of the major fleet operations of the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where she was hit once, suffering negligible damage. The ship was also present during Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea in September and October 1917, and at the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917. After the war she was interned with other ships of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in Scotland. In June 1919 the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. Kaiser's wreck was raised in 1929 and broken up in Rosyth in 1930.

Neal Dow

Neal Dow.
Neal Dow (March 20, 1804 – October 2, 1897) was an American prohibition advocate and politician. He was elected president of the Maine Temperance Union in 1850, and mayor of Portland the next year. Soon after, largely due to his efforts, the state legislature banned the sale and production of alcohol in what became known as the Maine Law. As mayor, Dow enforced the law with vigor and called for increasingly harsh penalties for violators. In 1855, his opponents rioted and he ordered the state militia to fire on the crowd. One man was killed and several were wounded. After public reaction to the violence turned against him, he chose not to run again for mayor. He was later elected to two terms in the state legislature, but retired after a financial scandal. He joined the Union Army shortly after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 and became a brigadier general. He was wounded at the siege of Port Hudson and later captured. After being exchanged for another officer in 1864, Dow resigned from the military and devoted himself once more to prohibition. In 1880, he headed the Prohibition Party ticket for President of the United States.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive division 2K Games. Oblivion was released on March 20, 2006, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360, and later for mobile phones and PlayStation 3. In the main storyline, the player character thwarts the fanatical Mythic Dawn cult from opening the gates to a realm called Oblivion. The player can travel anywhere in the game world at any time, develop the character's skills, and ignore or postpone the main storyline indefinitely. The graphics were designed with an improved Havok physics engine, high dynamic range lighting, and procedural content generation tools to generate terrain. The Radiant A.I. system manages the complex behaviors of the non-player characters (NPCs). The game features the music of award-winning composer Jeremy Soule. Overall, Oblivion has been successful both commercially and critically, winning industry and publication awards. It was praised for its graphics, expansive game world, and fully voiced, schedule-driven NPCs.

Seri Rambai

Seri Rambai.
The Seri Rambai is a 17th-century Dutch cannon displayed at Fort Cornwallis in George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site city and capital of the Malaysian state of Penang. It is a fertility symbol, the subject of legends and prophecy, and the largest bronze gun in Malaysia. The cannon's history in the Malacca Straits began in the early 1600s when Dutch East India Company officers gave it to the Sultan of Johor in return for trading concessions. Less than a decade later, after Johor was destroyed and the sultan captured, the Seri Rambai was taken to Aceh. Near the end of the eighteenth century the cannon was sent to Selangor and mounted next to one of the town's hilltop forts. In 1871 pirates seized a Penang junk, murdered its passengers and crew, and took the stolen vessel to Selangor. The British colonial government responded by burning the town, destroying its forts and confiscating the Seri Rambai. Originally displayed on Penang's Esplanade, the gun was moved in the 1950s to the ramparts at Fort Cornwallis.

Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Stone is a large black stone stele bearing a translation of Ancient Egyptian text, the first recovered in modern times. Found in 1799, it is inscribed with three versions of a decree from 196 BC announcing the rule of King Ptolemy V. The texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script and in Ancient Greek. The stone proved to be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was taken from building material in Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta when it was rediscovered during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. After British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, they seized the stone and transported it to London. It has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802, and is the museum's most-visited object. Since its rediscovery, the stone has been the focus of nationalist rivalries, including a long-running dispute over the relative value of Thomas Young's and Jean-François Champollion's contributions to the decipherment, and demands this century for the stone's return to Egypt.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was an Irish playwright and critic who had a major influence on Western theatre, culture and politics. He was born in Dublin and moved to London in 1876 as a struggling writer and novelist. His first stage success was Arms and the Man in 1894; under the influence of Henrik Ibsen he brought a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his often contentious political, social and religious ideas. He became a member of the gradualist Fabian Society, was a socialist pamphleteer and polemicist for over 50 years, and was instrumental in the foundation of the modern Labour Party. Many of his plays were critical and commercial successes, including Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). He was regarded as the leading dramatist of his generation, and was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote prolifically until shortly before his death, aged 94.

Powderfinger

Powderfinger.
Powderfinger, an Australian rock band, formed in Brisbane in 1989. From 1992 to 2010 the lineup consisted of vocalist Bernard Fanning, guitarists Darren Middleton and Ian Haug, bass guitarist John Collins and drummer Jon Coghill. The group's third studio album, Internationalist, peaked at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart in September 1998. Their next studio album, Odyssey Number Five, reached number one in September 2000 and was certified eight times platinum, shipping over 560,000 units. Their next three studio albums also reached number one: Vulture Street (July 2003), Dream Days at the Hotel Existence (June 2007) and Golden Rule (November 2009). Powderfinger earned the third-highest total of ARIA Awards (18), after Silverchair and John Farnham. Their last tour, the Sunsets Farewell Tour, concluded on 13 November 2010. In November the following year, the band published a biography with Dino Scatena, a rock music journalist, called Footprints: the inside story of Australia's best loved band.

Allah jang Palsoe

Allah jang Palsoe.
Allah jang Palsoe (Malay for The False God) is a 1919 stage drama from the Dutch East Indies that was written by the ethnic Chinese author Kwee Tek Hoay, based on E. Phillips Oppenheim's short story "The False Gods". Over six acts, the Malay-language play follows two brothers, one a devout son who holds firmly to his morals and personal honour, the other a man who worships money and prioritises personal gain. The two learn over the course of a decade that money (the titular false god) is not the path to happiness. Kwee Tek Hoay's first stage play, Allah jang Palsoe was written as a realist response to whimsical contemporary theatre. Though the published stageplay sold poorly and the play was deemed difficult to perform, Allah jang Palsoe found success on the stage. By 1930 it had been performed by various ethnic Chinese troupes to popular acclaim, and had pioneered a body of work by authors such as Lauw Giok Lan, Tio Ie Soei, and Tjoa Tjien Mo. In 2006 the script for the play, which continues to be performed, was republished with updated spelling by the Lontar Foundation.

Hugh de Neville

Hugh de Neville.
Hugh de Neville (died 1234) was the Chief Forester under the kings Richard I, John, and Henry III of England, and a sheriff of several counties over his lifetime. Neville was related to royal officials and a bishop, and was a member of Prince Richard's household. After Richard became king in 1189, Neville continued in his service, accompanying him on the Third Crusade. Neville remained in the royal service following Richard's death in 1199 and the accession of King John to the throne, becoming one of the new king's favourites and often gambling with him. He was named in Magna Carta as one of John's principal advisers, considered by a medieval chronicler to be one of King John's "evil counsellors". He deserted John after the French invasion of England in 1216, but returned to pledge his loyalty to John's son Henry III after the latter's accession to the throne that year. Neville's royal service continued until his death in 1234, though by then he was a less significant figure than he had been at the height of his powers.

God of War II

God of War II.
God of War II is a third person action-adventure video game first released on March 13, 2007, and was the last major release for the PlayStation 2. The player controls Kratos, a Spartan warrior who became the new God of War after killing the former, Ares. Kratos is betrayed by Zeus, the King of the Olympian Gods, who strips him of his godhood and kills him. On his way to the Underworld, Kratos is saved by Gaia, who instructs him to find the Sisters of Fate. Acquiring their power, he travels back in time to avert his betrayal and take revenge on Zeus, who is revealed to be his father. The gameplay focuses on combo-based combat and features quick time events that require the player to complete game controller actions in a timed sequence to defeat stronger enemies and bosses. The game also features magical attacks, puzzles, and platforming elements. The fourteenth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time, it sold more than 4.24 million copies worldwide. Regarded as one of the best action-adventure games for the platform and noted for its graphics and gameplay, it received several awards, including PlayStation Game of the Year.

SMS Kaiser (1911)

SMS Kaiser (1911).
SMS Kaiser was the lead ship of her class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. The ship was built by the Imperial Dockyard at Kiel, launched on 22 March 1911, and commissioned in August 1912 with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns and a top speed of 23.4 knots (43.3 km/h; 26.9 mph). Kaiser was assigned to the Third Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of World War I. The ship participated in most of the major fleet operations of the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where she was hit once, suffering negligible damage. The ship was also present during Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea in September and October 1917, and at the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917. After the war she was interned with other ships of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in Scotland. In June 1919 the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. Kaiser's wreck was raised in 1929 and broken up in Rosyth in 1930.

Neal Dow

Neal Dow.
Neal Dow (March 20, 1804 – October 2, 1897) was an American prohibition advocate and politician. He was elected president of the Maine Temperance Union in 1850, and mayor of Portland the next year. Soon after, largely due to his efforts, the state legislature banned the sale and production of alcohol in what became known as the Maine Law. As mayor, Dow enforced the law with vigor and called for increasingly harsh penalties for violators. In 1855, his opponents rioted and he ordered the state militia to fire on the crowd. One man was killed and several were wounded. After public reaction to the violence turned against him, he chose not to run again for mayor. He was later elected to two terms in the state legislature, but retired after a financial scandal. He joined the Union Army shortly after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 and became a brigadier general. He was wounded at the siege of Port Hudson and later captured. After being exchanged for another officer in 1864, Dow resigned from the military and devoted himself once more to prohibition. In 1880, he headed the Prohibition Party ticket for President of the United States.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive division 2K Games. Oblivion was released on March 20, 2006, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360, and later for mobile phones and PlayStation 3. In the main storyline, the player character thwarts the fanatical Mythic Dawn cult from opening the gates to a realm called Oblivion. The player can travel anywhere in the game world at any time, develop the character's skills, and ignore or postpone the main storyline indefinitely. The graphics were designed with an improved Havok physics engine, high dynamic range lighting, and procedural content generation tools to generate terrain. The Radiant A.I. system manages the complex behaviors of the non-player characters (NPCs). The game features the music of award-winning composer Jeremy Soule. Overall, Oblivion has been successful both commercially and critically, winning industry and publication awards. It was praised for its graphics, expansive game world, and fully voiced, schedule-driven NPCs.

Seri Rambai

Seri Rambai.
The Seri Rambai is a 17th-century Dutch cannon displayed at Fort Cornwallis in George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site city and capital of the Malaysian state of Penang. It is a fertility symbol, the subject of legends and prophecy, and the largest bronze gun in Malaysia. The cannon's history in the Malacca Straits began in the early 1600s when Dutch East India Company officers gave it to the Sultan of Johor in return for trading concessions. Less than a decade later, after Johor was destroyed and the sultan captured, the Seri Rambai was taken to Aceh. Near the end of the eighteenth century the cannon was sent to Selangor and mounted next to one of the town's hilltop forts. In 1871 pirates seized a Penang junk, murdered its passengers and crew, and took the stolen vessel to Selangor. The British colonial government responded by burning the town, destroying its forts and confiscating the Seri Rambai. Originally displayed on Penang's Esplanade, the gun was moved in the 1950s to the ramparts at Fort Cornwallis.

Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Stone is a large black stone stele bearing a translation of Ancient Egyptian text, the first recovered in modern times. Found in 1799, it is inscribed with three versions of a decree from 196 BC announcing the rule of King Ptolemy V. The texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script and in Ancient Greek. The stone proved to be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was taken from building material in Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta when it was rediscovered during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. After British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, they seized the stone and transported it to London. It has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802, and is the museum's most-visited object. Since its rediscovery, the stone has been the focus of nationalist rivalries, including a long-running dispute over the relative value of Thomas Young's and Jean-François Champollion's contributions to the decipherment, and demands this century for the stone's return to Egypt.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was an Irish playwright and critic who had a major influence on Western theatre, culture and politics. He was born in Dublin and moved to London in 1876 as a struggling writer and novelist. His first stage success was Arms and the Man in 1894; under the influence of Henrik Ibsen he brought a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his often contentious political, social and religious ideas. He became a member of the gradualist Fabian Society, was a socialist pamphleteer and polemicist for over 50 years, and was instrumental in the foundation of the modern Labour Party. Many of his plays were critical and commercial successes, including Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). He was regarded as the leading dramatist of his generation, and was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote prolifically until shortly before his death, aged 94.

Powderfinger

Powderfinger.
Powderfinger, an Australian rock band, formed in Brisbane in 1989. From 1992 to 2010 the lineup consisted of vocalist Bernard Fanning, guitarists Darren Middleton and Ian Haug, bass guitarist John Collins and drummer Jon Coghill. The group's third studio album, Internationalist, peaked at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart in September 1998. Their next studio album, Odyssey Number Five, reached number one in September 2000 and was certified eight times platinum, shipping over 560,000 units. Their next three studio albums also reached number one: Vulture Street (July 2003), Dream Days at the Hotel Existence (June 2007) and Golden Rule (November 2009). Powderfinger earned the third-highest total of ARIA Awards (18), after Silverchair and John Farnham. Their last tour, the Sunsets Farewell Tour, concluded on 13 November 2010. In November the following year, the band published a biography with Dino Scatena, a rock music journalist, called Footprints: the inside story of Australia's best loved band.

Allah jang Palsoe

Allah jang Palsoe.
Allah jang Palsoe (Malay for The False God) is a 1919 stage drama from the Dutch East Indies that was written by the ethnic Chinese author Kwee Tek Hoay, based on E. Phillips Oppenheim's short story "The False Gods". Over six acts, the Malay-language play follows two brothers, one a devout son who holds firmly to his morals and personal honour, the other a man who worships money and prioritises personal gain. The two learn over the course of a decade that money (the titular false god) is not the path to happiness. Kwee Tek Hoay's first stage play, Allah jang Palsoe was written as a realist response to whimsical contemporary theatre. Though the published stageplay sold poorly and the play was deemed difficult to perform, Allah jang Palsoe found success on the stage. By 1930 it had been performed by various ethnic Chinese troupes to popular acclaim, and had pioneered a body of work by authors such as Lauw Giok Lan, Tio Ie Soei, and Tjoa Tjien Mo. In 2006 the script for the play, which continues to be performed, was republished with updated spelling by the Lontar Foundation.

Hugh de Neville

Hugh de Neville.
Hugh de Neville (died 1234) was the Chief Forester under the kings Richard I, John, and Henry III of England, and a sheriff of several counties over his lifetime. Neville was related to royal officials and a bishop, and was a member of Prince Richard's household. After Richard became king in 1189, Neville continued in his service, accompanying him on the Third Crusade. Neville remained in the royal service following Richard's death in 1199 and the accession of King John to the throne, becoming one of the new king's favourites and often gambling with him. He was named in Magna Carta as one of John's principal advisers, considered by a medieval chronicler to be one of King John's "evil counsellors". He deserted John after the French invasion of England in 1216, but returned to pledge his loyalty to John's son Henry III after the latter's accession to the throne that year. Neville's royal service continued until his death in 1234, though by then he was a less significant figure than he had been at the height of his powers.

God of War II

God of War II.
God of War II is a third person action-adventure video game first released on March 13, 2007, and was the last major release for the PlayStation 2. The player controls Kratos, a Spartan warrior who became the new God of War after killing the former, Ares. Kratos is betrayed by Zeus, the King of the Olympian Gods, who strips him of his godhood and kills him. On his way to the Underworld, Kratos is saved by Gaia, who instructs him to find the Sisters of Fate. Acquiring their power, he travels back in time to avert his betrayal and take revenge on Zeus, who is revealed to be his father. The gameplay focuses on combo-based combat and features quick time events that require the player to complete game controller actions in a timed sequence to defeat stronger enemies and bosses. The game also features magical attacks, puzzles, and platforming elements. The fourteenth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time, it sold more than 4.24 million copies worldwide. Regarded as one of the best action-adventure games for the platform and noted for its graphics and gameplay, it received several awards, including PlayStation Game of the Year.