A cheerleader is a person who does cheerleading, or leads cheers for sporting events or during competition. This is usually done as a group. It is done to keep the spirit of a sports team up.

History
This sport is originally from the United States. It was first seen in the beginning of the 1900s. It was, and is still used to support a local sports group (for example football).

Because of the athletic ability often needed in cheerleading, many people think cheerleading is a sport. Cheerleaders perform routines that include dancing, tumbling, cheering, stunting and jumping. Cheerleading teams can compete in competitions against other cheer teams as well as perform for different sporting events.

Other websites

Cheerleading Squads

Sports occupations

Cheerleader


Toro is a Spanish Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) for wines in the province of Zamora, which is in the northwest of Castile and Léon (Spain). The area covered by the DOP is in the southeastern corner of Zamora province and includes the lands known as Tierra del Vino, Valle del Guareña and Tierra de Toro. It borders on the lands known as Tierra del Pan and Tierra de Campos. There are 8,000 ha under vines, of which 5,500 are registered with the DOP Regulatory Council (Consejo Regulador).

History

Wine has been made in Toro since the end of the 1st century BC, when the ancient Greeks taught the local Celtic tribes. In the Early Middle Ages, the wines from Toro were the first to be traded in the region of the River Duero.

King Alfonso IX granted lands to several religious orders with the understanding that they would plant vines, and many of the 40 churches that exist in the town of Toro today were built thanks to the wealth generated by the wine trade. The reputation of the wines from Toro grew and it began to be sold in other cities further afield such as Seville and Palencia. At this time the wine producers built underground wineries (bodegas) in order to obtain better quality wines and to have more effective temperature control.

At the end of the 19th century great quantities of wine were exported to France during the phylloxera crisis, which did not affect the local vines as they were protected by the sandy soil. For this reason, the vines of other regions of Spain were replaced by vines from Toro. For this reason, Toro still has a number of very old vineyards with pre-phylloxera Tinta de Toro, which in recent years have been used to source grapes for special cuvées.

The Toro DOP was created in 1987, and today is one of Spain's leading wine DOPs.

Climate
The DOP has an extreme continental climate (long, hot summers, cold winters) with Atlantic influences. Temperatures vary greatly, ranging from -11°C in winter to 37°C in summer. Rainfall is light, around 350-400 mm per annum. Hours of sunlight received are about 2,600 per annum with a maximum of 3,000.

Soil
The soil is formed by sediments of sand, clays and lime-bearing puddingstone, which produce a dark lime-bearing topsoil, with fine and coarse sands.

The vineyards are at heights of between 620 m and 750 m above sea level.

Authorised grape varieties
 Red grapes: Tinta de Toro, Garnacha
 White grapes: Verdejo, Malvasía Castellana, Albillo Real, Moscatel de Grano Menudo

Wines produced

 The red wines are predominantly made with 100% Tinta de Toro grapes. there are several types of reds:
 Young red: best drunk within the year of production
 Roble: a young red aged between three and six months (can contain some Garnacha)
 Crianza: aged for at least two years, of which at least six months in oak barrel
 Reserva: aged for at least three years, of which one year in oak barrel
 Gran Reserva: aged for at least five years, of which two years in oak barrel

 The rosé wines are made from 50% Tinta de Toro and 50% Garnacha
 The white wines are made from 100% Verdejo or 100% Malvasía

See also
Spanish wine
Cuisine of the province of Valladolid

References

External links
 D.O. Toro official website

Wine regions of Spain
Province of Valladolid
Province of Zamora

Toro (DO)


Benedict XVI (, , ; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on 16 Aprile 1927 an deid 31 December 2022) wis the (Twa hundert an saxtie fift) 265th ringin Pape, the heid o the Roman Catholic Kirk an sovereign o Vatican Ceity. He wis electit on 19 Aprile 2005, in a papal conclave that he moderated ower in his capacity as dean o the College o Cardinals. He slockened his Papal Handsel Mass on 24 Aprile 2005 an wis enthroned in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano on Mey 7t, 2005.

Ane o the maist influential academic theologians syne the 1960s an Owthor o mony beuks, he is seen as conservative an a sib ally o his Aforecomer, Pape John Paul II. He serred as Airchbishop o Munich, Prefect o the Congregation for the Lair o the Faith an Dean o the College o Cardinals afore bein makkit the Pape.

The Pape in parteecular emphasizes the need for Europe tae tak back whit he sees as it's vailyies, acause o the increasin secularisation o maist o the Wastren Warld. He visitit Scotland on 16 September 2010 as pairt o a state veesit tae the Unitit Kinrick.

Benedict XVI demittit as Pape on 28 Februar 2013, in the first papal demission syne 1415, an wis succeedit bi Pape Francis on 13 Mairch.

1927 births
2022 daiths
Bairn sodgers
Fowk frae Altötting (destrict)
Papes that abdicatit
Cardinal-bishops o Ostia
Cardinals creautit bi Pope Paul VI
Ratzinger, Joseph
Ecclesiologists
German cardinals
German pianists
German papes
German Roman Catholics
German preesoners o war in Warld War II held bi the Unitit States
20t-century German Catholic theologians
Grand Crosses 1st cless o the Order o Meerit o the Federal Republic o Germany
Internaitional Theological Comeesion
Ludwig Maximilian Varsity o Munich alumni
Ludwig Maximilian Varsity o Munich faculty
Members o the Congregation for the Doctrine o the Faith
Members o the European Academy o Sciences an Airts
Pairteecipants in the Seicont Vatican Cooncil
Commandeurs o the Légion d'honneur
Members o the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science an Airt
Ratzinger faimily
Recipients o the Bavarian Order o Meerit
Recipients o the Grand Decoration wi Sash for Services tae the Republic o Austrick
Recipients o the Leopold-Kunschak-Prize
Roman Catholic Airchbishops o Munich an Freising
Roman Catholic filosofers
Roman Catholic writers
Stroke survivors
Theistic evolutionists
Anti-consumerists
Varsity o Bonn faculty
Varsity o Münster faculty
Varsity o Regensburg faculty
Varsity o Tübingen faculty
21st-century papes

Pape Benedict XVI


The mini-skirt, or miniskirt, is a skirt well above the knees, close to the buttocks. If the top and skirt are all-in-one, then it is a minidress. Microskirts are extremely brief, and usually worn only for publicity events.

Mini-skirts were invented by Mary Quant, who also invented, or promoted, hot pants. There is disagreement as to who came up with the idea first; some say André Courrèges or John Bates. The short- and ever-shorter skirt was evolving already among fashion-minded young women: the designers who adapted it just helped spread the style. In Quant's case, she gave it the name. Mary Quant named the mini-skirt after her favorite make of car, the Mini. She loved the car so much, she had one designed especially for her.

Gallery

References

1960s
Bottoms (clothing)

Mini-skirt


Adnan Zahid Abdulsamad was a former member of the Kuwaiti National Assembly, representing the first district. Born in 1950, Abdulsamad studied political science and worked in the Oil Ministry before being elected to the National Assembly in 1981.  While political parties are technically illegal in Kuwait, Abdulsamad affiliates with the National Islamic Alliance, which is a Shia party.

Supported severing ties with Denmark
On November 6, 2006, the parliament voted 22–15 to approve severing diplomatic ties with Denmark over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and spending about US$50 (€39.20) million to defend the prophet's image in the West. Both votes were nonbinding, meaning the Cabinet did not have to abide by them.  Abdulsamad voted in favor of cutting diplomatic ties, saying, ""We have to cut diplomatic and commercial ties with Denmark... We don't have to eat Danish cheese."

Temporary marriage mini-series controversy
On September 16, 2007, Abdulsamad and fellow Shia MP Saleh Ashour spoke out against a planned Ramadan soap opera miniseries titled ''Sins Have a Price'', which was to revolve around and criticize the Shiite form of temporary marriage known as "Mutaa."  In a public statement, Abdulsamad accused the series of giving "a total distortion of Shiism ... It also incites sectarianism...  It is very provocative and comes at a sensitive time amid the sectarian tension in the region."

Abdulsamad charged that besides stoking sectarianism, the serial insults and distorts the Shia faith by mocking temporary marriage, a valid, sanctioned concept in Shiism despite the controversy and social taboos surrounding the practice.

Expulsion from Popular Action Bloc
On February 19, 2008, the Popular Action Bloc expelled Abdulsamad and fellow Shiite MP Ahmed Lari for taking part in a ceremony eulogizing Hezbollah's slain top commander, Imad Mughniyeh.  The ceremony's description of the fugitive Lebanese militant – killed in a February 12 car bombing in Syria – as a hero sparked public outrage in a country that holds him responsible for hijacking a Kuwait Airways flight and killing two of its Kuwaiti passengers 20 years prior. The two lawmakers were only expelled from their bloc, and remained in the legislature.  After the expulsions of the two, the seven member bloc was down to five members.

References

1950 births
Living people
Members of the National Assembly (Kuwait)
Kuwaiti Shia Muslims
Kuwaiti people of Iranian descent
National Islamic Alliance politicians
Popular Action Bloc politicians

Adnan Zahid Abdulsamad


Platinum–iridium alloys are alloys of the platinum group precious metals platinum and iridium.

Typical alloy proportions are 90:10 or 70:30 (Pt:Ir). These have the chemical stability of platinum, but increased hardness. The Vickers hardness of pure platinum is 56 HV while platinum with 50% of iridium can reach over 500 HV. This improved hardness has also been considered as beneficial for use in platinum jewellery, particularly watch cases.

Owing to their high cost, these alloys are rarely used. They have been used for spinnerets in the manufacture of synthetic fibres.

Their well-known use is in metrology, where they are used to make the international prototypes used by international standards bodies for mass standards such as the international prototype of the kilogram and the international prototype of the metre, although both have been superseded during the 2019 redefinition of the SI base units.

The other extremely widespread use for Pt/Ir alloy is fabrication of metal microelectrodes for electrical stimulation of nervous tissue and electrophysiological recordings. Pt/Ir alloy has an optimal combination of mechanical and electrochemical properties for this application. Pure iridium is very difficult to pull into small diameter wires; at the same time, platinum has a low Young's modulus which makes pure platinum wires bend too easily during insertion into nervous tissue. Additionally, platinum–iridium alloys containing oxides of both metals can be electro-deposited onto the surface of microelectrodes.

References

Iridium, Platinum alloys
Iridium
Precious metal alloys

Platinum–iridium alloy


The 1292–94 papal election (from 5 April 1292 to 5 July 1294), was the last papal election which did not take the form of a papal conclave (in which the electors are locked in seclusion cum clave—Latin for "with a key"—and not permitted to leave until a new Bishop of Rome has been elected). After the death of Pope Nicholas IV on 4 April 1292, the eleven surviving cardinals (a twelfth died during the sede vacante) deliberated for more than two years before electing the third of six non-cardinals to be elected pope during the Late Middle Ages: Pietro da Morrone, who took the name Pope Celestine V.

Contemporary sources suggest that Morrone was hesitant to accept his election when word of the cardinals' decision reached his mountain-top hermitage. His ascetic life left him largely unprepared for the day-to-day responsibilities of the papacy, and he quickly fell under the influence of the Neapolitan monarchy of Charles of Anjou, to the dissatisfaction of even the pro-Angevin cardinals within the College. Celestine V resigned on 13 December 1294.

Cardinal electors
Twelve cardinal electors began the election, but one—Jean Cholet—died before it was completed.

Deliberation

The eleven electors were relatively evenly divided between the factions of Colonna and Orsini, two powerful Roman families, led by Giacomo Colonna and Matteo Orsini, respectively. The three Orsini cardinals were pro-French and pro-Angevin, while the two Colonna cardinals supported competing Aragonese claims in Sicily. James II of Aragon had bankrolled the Colonna faction with gold, but it is unknown whether simony actually transpired.

After ten days of balloting in Rome, without any candidate approaching the requisite two-thirds, the cardinals adjourned until June and changed the location of the election from Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore to Santa Maria sopra Minerva. After a summer epidemic in the city, and the death of Cholet in August, they dispersed until late September. The non-Roman cardinals went to Rieti (except Caetani, who went to his native Anagni) while the Roman cardinals remained in the city. As balloting continued into the next summer, the disorder in Rome increased dramatically (even by the standards of a sede vacante, during which, based on the biblical example of Barabbas, all prisoners were released). The deaths of newly elected Roman Senators Agapitus Colonna and Ursus Orsini around Easter 1293 further exacerbated the anarchy within the city, which had been marked by the destruction of palaces, the slaying of pilgrims, and the sacking of churches. After the summer of 1293, the cardinals dispersed and agreed to reconvene in Perugia on October 18.

The College continued to deliberate fruitlessly in Perugia, where they were addressed by Charles II of Naples in March 1294. By  the summer of 1294, cardinals had begun to disperse, leaving only six in Perugia for their final meeting, where a letter was read aloud from a hermit,  Pietro de Morrone, stating that God had revealed to him that the cardinals would be punished for any further delay. Latino Malabranca Orsini, the senior cardinal, suddenly nominated Morrone—who would have been well known by the cardinals as a saintly figure—and the other cardinals rapidly agreed and recalled the departed electors to consent.

Consensus was achieved by 5 July  1294, when Morrone was elected. As with the selection of Gregory X by the papal election, 1268–1271, the choice of an outsider, non-cardinal, in this case an "octogenarian hermit," was seen as the only way to break the stalemate between the deadlocked cardinals. That election also could have resulted in the selection of a hermit, had Saint Philip Benizi not fled to avoid his election after he urged the cardinals to speed up their deliberations.

Coronation

Pietro Colonna and three bishops brought the news of Morrone's election to his mountain-top hermitage. Contemporary sources are emphatic in noting Morrone's reluctance to accept his election; for example, Petrarch recounts his attempt to flee.

Instead of coming to Perugia (the site of the election), Celestine insisted that the cardinals join him in L'Aquila (in Neapolitan territory) for his coronation, rather than crossing into the bordering Papal States. Imitating the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, Celestine rode a donkey, led by the bridle by Charles II of Naples and his son Charles Martel of Anjou to the L'Aquila basilica, which was the nearest cathedral to his hermitage. Latino Orsini died on August 10 in Perugia, but many of the other cardinals had second thoughts because of the perceived degree of Angevin control of the new pope. Because only three cardinals were present at the ceremony on August 29, it was repeated a few days later when more arrived, making Celestine the only pope to be crowned twice.

The Angevin-Neapolitan influence of Celestine was evident in his first consistory, during which he created twelve cardinals, including seven Frenchmen and three (or five) Neapolitans. This was the first time in history where a single consistory had swung the College of Cardinals so decidedly in one nationalist partisan direction. The cardinals who were not French or Angevin were members of Celestine's former order. Celestine also moved to the Castel Nuovo in Naples, where he continued to live much like a hermit until he resigned, as advocated by many Roman cardinals, including Benedetto Gaetani (who, a former lawyer, suggested that Celestine first publish a decree establishing the permissibility of papal abdication). Gaetani, elected Pope Boniface VIII following Celestine's abdication, proceeded to have Celestine imprisoned while the legality of his abdication remained a prominent subject, and Celestine died a prisoner in 1296.

Legacy
Before abdicating, Celestine re-enacted Ubi Periculum, the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Gregory X, which has governed all subsequent papal elections under the laws of the conclave. Two subsequent papal elections may be considered possible exceptions, although they adhered to the laws of the conclave to a great degree: the Council of Constance, which elected Pope Martin V to end the Western Schism, and the papal conclave, 1799-1800, for which Pope Pius VI suspended Ubi Periculum due to the interference of Napoléon Bonaparte.

See also
Papal election, 1268–1271, during which the procedures of the conclave largely developed (the first two of the seven intervening papal elections were conclaves)

Notes

References
Baumgartner, Frederic J. 2003. Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections. Palgrave Macmillan.
Collins, Michael. 2005. The Fisherman's Net: The Influence of the Popes on History. Hidden Spring.
Emerton, Ephraim. 1917. The Beginnings of Modern Europe (1250–1450). Ginn & Co. (Available online)
Gregorovius, Ferdinand. 1906. History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. G. Bell & Sons. (Available online)
Herde, Peter. 1981. Cölestin V (1294) (Peter vom Morone): Der Engelpapst (Stuttgart, 1981).
Pietropaoli, Paolo. 1894. "Il Conclave di Perugia e l'elezione di Pier Celestino," Celestino V ed il VI centenario della sua Incornazione (Aquila 1894), 97–114.
Rotberg, Robert I. 2001. Politics and political change: A Journal of Interdisciplinary History Reader. MIT Press.
Toropov, Brandon. 2002. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Popes and Papacy. Alpha Books.
Trollope, Thomas Adolphus. 1876. The Papal Conclaves, as They Were and as They are. Chapman and Hall. (Available online)
Williams, George L. 2004. Papal Genealogy: The Families And Descendants Of The Popes. McFarland.

External links
Sede Vacante and Conclave, 1292–1294 (Dr. J. P. Adams).

13th-century elections
1292
1293
1294
1292
13th-century Catholicism
1292 in Europe
1293 in Europe
1294 in Europe

1292–1294 papal election


Thee Majesty was a  British industrial music group.

History
In 1998, Genesis P-Orridge was ending their association with the name Psychic TV, the band they created after the termination of Throbbing Gristle.  At the same time, they began conceptualizing Thee Majesty as a spoken word-based project springing from the Splinter Test project with PTV alumnus Larry Thrasher. The first major Thee Majesty performance was in 1998 in Stockholm, Sweden at an international spoken word festival that included Michael Gira and Wanda Coleman amongst other notable spoken word artists. That first Thee Majesty lineup for the Sweden show included P-Orridge, Larry Thrasher, Bachir Attar, and Chandra Shukla. Later in New York, P-Orridge met Bryin Dall (4th Sign of the Apocalypse, A Murder of Angels, Dream Into Dust) and began doing live performances in New York and San Francisco and tours with the industrial band Pigface. Thee Majesty's second major performance was at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England on 1 May 1999, which was also the "final" show of PTV.  The show was called "Time's Up" which was also the name of the new project's debut CD, released on the same date by Dall's label The Order of the Suffering Clown via World Serpent Distribution.  Since then, Thee Majesty has remained an intermittent project, only playing sporadic festivals, art events, and intimate venues in Europe and the US, and releasing very few original studio albums. In 2009 Thee Majesty played a critically acclaimed show expounding on a transgender creation story theme at the Centre Pompidou with P-Orridge, Thrasher, Dall and Edley in the lineup.

Members
Besides P-Orridge and Dall, Larry Thrasher has performed several live shows including two tours of Europe.  They were joined in 2004 by P-Orridge's wife, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, and briefly by Morrison Edley (Toilet Böys). The project remains a vehicle for P-Orridge's semi-freeform rants and concepts, supported by Dall's guitar and sample soundscapes along with Thrasher's tabla playing and noise soundscapes, at times augmented by some combination of other players.  Edley, now known as "Electric Eddie", has focused mainly on PTVII, the latest incarnation of Psychic TV. Lady Jaye died on Tuesday 9 October 2007.

Discography

Thee Majesty's discography is a bit confusing. As noted above, Time's Up was the name of multiple releases and events including the debut album.  P-Orridge has also opted to use the name on reissues of works predating the band's inception. A Hollow Cost, At Stockholm, and Thee Fractured Garden were originally Psychic TV or Splinter Test releases, but in reissues they were given new artwork and credited to both Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Majesty. Mary Never Wanted Jesus was a special Christmas-themed limited release that contains some different tracks and running orders on the vinyl and CD versions.  Vitruvian Pan is the band's second proper full-length studio album, though it contains elements from live recordings.

Note: releases marked with ‡ are dual-credited reissues of older material.
Time's Up (1999)
Time's Up Live (2001)
A Hollow Cost (2003)‡
At Stockholm (2004)‡
Thee Fractured Garden] (2004)‡
Mary Never Wanted Jesus (2005)
Vitruvian Pan (2007)

See also
Psychic TV
Splinter Test
Throbbing Gristle

References

External links
Official myspace

British electronic music groups
British techno music groups
British industrial music groups

Thee Majesty


Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss watch manufacture. It is a part of the Richemont group since 1996. The brand's watch factory is based in Geneva. Vacheron Constantin opened 15 boutiques and 500 shops in 80 countries of the world. Vacheron Constantin is one of the oldest watchmakers.

History

18th century
Jean-Marc Vacheron opened the first workshop in Geneva, Switzerland in 1755. In 1770 the company introduced the first complication (an additional function of a watch besides showing hours and minutes).

The son of Jean-Marc Vacheron, Abraham, became the head of the family business in 1785.

19th century

In 1810, Jacques-Barthélemy, the grandson of the founder continued the business. He controlled the company's exports of watches to France and Italy.

In 1819 Francois Constantinin became the partner of Vacheron. The name of the company became – "Vacheron & Constantin". Francois Constantin traveled a lot and opened new markets for the company. The main market was North America. Francois wrote the company's motto - Do better if possible and that is always possible. It is kept till the present day.

In 1839 Georges-Auguste Leschot joined "Vacheron & Constantin". He headed the manufacturing process. Leschot's inventions brought great success to the company and watchmaking in general. Leschot invented a device that made possible mechanical production of some watch parts. It helped the company leave behind other watchmakers.

After Francois Constantin and Jacques-Barthélemy Vacheron died, the company was headed by their heirs. Since 1862 Vacheron Constantin explores the field of non-magnetic materials. In 1885, it produced the first anti-magnetic watch. The watch could resist magnetic fields.

In 1877 the company officially changed the name for "Vacheron & Constantin, Fabricants, Geneve". The same year the company chose its symbol - the Maltese cross.In 1887, Vacheron Constantin became a stock company.

20th century
The first Vacheron Constantin boutique was opened in Geneva in 1906. Today the store is situated on Quai de l'Ile. Charles Constantin headed the company in 1936. He led it through the Great Depression period. For the first time since 1850s a Constantin family member became the president of the company. When the World War II was over, the company got back its firm position on the watch market.

The history of Vacheron Constantin saw a lot of innovations. The brand's classic Patrimony line was started with the thinnest watch. Its case was only 5.25mm thick. In 1979 Vacheron Constantin created the most expensive wristwatch with initial price of $5 million. The watch named Kallista had 118 diamonds. Today its price is $11 million.

Recent years
At present day Vacheron Constantin produces about 20,000 watches every year. In 2003 Vacheron Constantin presented a new sports watch line - Overseas. In 2005 the company introduced a new Egérie collection. The collection included women's watches for the first time.

In 2005, Juan Carlos Torres became the Chief of the Vacheron Constantin Company. The same year Vacheron Constantin produced the most complicated wristwatch - Tour de I'lle. The watch consisted of 834 parts and had 16 complications (additional functions). Its price reached over $1 million. In 2006 the company opened a new main office in Genevan Plan-les-Ouates.

Other websites
 Vacheron Constantin - Facts of Life  - Other facts from the life of the manufactory
 Kallista - The Most Wonderful Legend  - Information about the most expensive watch in the world
 Vacheron Constantin - The Oldest Watchmaking Company?  - Disputing the fact that Vacheron Constantin is the oldest watchmaker

Companies of Switzerland
Organizations based in Geneva

Vacheron Constantin


DoD News Channel was a television channel broadcasting military news and information for the 2.6 million members of the U.S. Armed Forces. It was widely available in the United States as a standalone television channel, or as part of programming on local PEG cable television channels. It could be viewed FTA in most Central and Western European countries (from Eurobird 9A at 9.0° East), Africa, the Americas and most of Asia via satellite, and globally via the Internet. DoD News Channel was free, in the public domain, and accessible 24/7 to all U.S. cable and satellite providers.

The channel was founded in 2004 as The Pentagon Channel. On July 8, 2014, The Pentagon Channel was rebranded as the DoD News Channel. The channel ceased operations on April 17, 2015. However, content will still be produced for the American Forces Network and the website Defense.gov.

Programming
The network's programming included Department of Defense news briefings, Military news, Interviews with top Defense officials, Short stories about the work of the United States military, and Military Lifestyle programming.

As The Pentagon Channel, the channel carried:

RECON: A monthly half-hour informational television program providing an in-depth look on a variety of topics from real world operations, missions, military events / history and other subjects highlighting the accomplishments of U.S. military men and women.
Around the Services: Daily half-hour program featuring military news from top Defense officials and the Military Services from around the world.
Fit for Duty: Takes viewers through a high-energy 30-minute workout led by service members with expertise in fitness training. The show makes it simple to follow along and complete exercises demonstrated by the instructors. A military sports medicine physician also offers tips for preventing injuries and avoiding career-ending accidents during each episode of the show.
Downrange: The latest news from Iraq and Afghanistan affecting U.S. military members.
Battleground: Every weekend, this series features historic films from World War II, Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
The Grill Sergeants: The Grill Sergeants teach audience members how to prepare food while the in-house Army jazz quartet "The Taste Buds," play the show's score.
This Week in the Pentagon: A weekly half hour update on the news coming out of the Pentagon, taking one topic each week and exploring it in-depth.
FNG (For New Guys): FNG is a half-hour lifestyle show featuring useful advice aimed at young troops new to the military. Viewers will learn about great low-cost travel, cooking, assignments, electronics and more.
Command Performance: Features military journalists talking with today's top entertainers for conversations with a uniquely military perspective. An updated revival of a 1940s radio program of the same name.

The Pentagon Channel also showed programming direct from the services such as, Freedom Journal Iraq, Freedom Watch Afghanistan, Army Newswatch, AFN Korea Nightly News, AFN Europe Report, Pacific Report, Eye on Nellis, The American Veteran, Air Force Space Today, In Step with Fort Riley and On Track with Ft. Hood, as well as live Department of Defense briefings and roundtables.

With the change to DoD News Channel, most of the non-news programming was either dropped or de-emphasized.

Podcasting

In April 2006, the Pentagon Channel launched its podcasting initiative, having offered up to 27 podcasts via the iTunes Store and its website.

American Forces Press Service
The American Forces Press Service (AFPS) was the news service provided by the Defense Media Activity (formerly the American Forces Information Service), part of the United States Department of Defense. It supplied news stories pertaining to the activities of the U.S. military around the world. The New York Times has described it as the Pentagon's "media branch" or "internal news service".

AFPS was shuttered in a 2015 internal realignment of the Defense Media Activity and its reporting was merged with that of other DMA DOD-level production activities into a new organization named DOD News. DOD News was in turn shuttered during a 2018 internal realignment. DOD-level reporting of the type formerly done by AFPS and DOD News reporters is now credited to Defense.gov.

AFPS, DOD News and Defense.gov reporting uses a modified version of Associated Press style.

See also
American Forces Network

References

External links

Satellite distribution details

American public access television shows
Defunct television networks in the United States
Articles containing video clips
English-language television stations in the United States
Mass media of the military of the United States
Television channels and stations established in 2004
2004 establishments in the United States
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2015
2015 disestablishments in Maryland
United States Department of Defense

DoD News Channel


"Calvin and Hobbes" is a comic strip by Bill Watterson about a boy called Calvin and a tiger called Hobbes. When Calvin looks at Hobbes, he sees a real tiger. However, everyone else sees Hobbes as a toy. This comic began in 1985 and has been in over 2,400 newspapers. Readers bought almost 23 million Calvin and Hobbes books.

In the comic, Calvin spends a lot of time with Hobbes. In pictures with only Calvin and Hobbes in them, Hobbes looks like a cartoon tiger. He stands on two legs. In pictures with any other person, Hobbes looks like a stuffed animal. Calvin meets Hobbes in the first story. Calvin catches him with a string and a tuna fish sandwich as bait. Calvin and Hobbes have all sorts of trouble and adventures. The comic strip continued from November 18, 1985 until December 31, 1995.

Characters

Calvin
Calvin is a 6-year-old boy. He is named after a religious thinker, or theologian, John Calvin. His last name is never in the comic.

Calvin often pretends, and he has a powerful imagination. He also does things without thinking. He is often very excited and is curious about everything. Sometimes he is selfish and rude. Calvin does not get good grades in school, but he knows very many complex words that usually only adults know. "You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid?" he says. "Well, mine are even worse!"

Calvin usually wears a shirt with red stripes on it. He has blond hair that stands up on his head. Watterson has described Calvin this way:
 "Calvin is pretty easy to do because he is outgoing and rambunctious and there's not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth."
 "I guess he's a little too intelligent for his age. The thing that I really enjoy about him is that he has no sense of restraint, he doesn't have the experience yet to know the things that you shouldn't do."

Hobbes
In classic comic tradition of sidekicks, Hobbes is like Calvin's 'good side' because he is more mature and makes smarter decisions than Calvin does. When Calvin does something like throw a snowball at a girl, Hobbes will say "You think she's cute, right?"

From most characters' point of view, Hobbes is Calvin's stuffed tiger. However, from Calvin's point of view, Hobbes is as alive and real just like other characters in the comic strip. He is named after 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had what Watterson called "a dim view of human nature." Hobbes is much more alert and aware of the bad things that can happen than Calvin is. But, he does not stop Calvin's trouble making. All that he really does is warn him. Calvin will be the one to get in trouble for doing something wrong, not Hobbes. Hobbes also likes to surprise Calvin. He approaches him quietly and then jumping on Calvin. Calvin hates this.

From Calvin's point of view, Hobbes is a real, intelligent, loyal, and cunning tiger, much larger than Calvin and full of his own attitudes and ideas. But when the view changes to any other character, readers see merely a little stuffed tiger. Watterson explains it like this:

Although the first strips clearly show Calvin capturing Hobbes by means of a trap (with tuna fish as the bait), a later comic (August 1, 1989) seems to imply that Hobbes is, in fact, older than Calvin, and has been around with him his whole life. Watterson decided that it was not important to explain how Calvin and Hobbes had first met.

Calvin's family
Calvin's mom and dad are mostly American middle-class parents; like many other characters in the strip, their relatively realistic and sensible manners act as a contrast to Calvin's childish and selfish behavior. Both parents go through the entire strip without names. They are only called "Mom" and "Dad", or nicknames such as "hon" and "dear." Watterson has never given Calvin's parents names "because as far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mom and dad." This ended up being somewhat problematic when Calvin's Uncle Max was in the strip for a week and could not refer to the parents by name, and was one of the main reasons that Max never reappeared.

Susie Derkins
Susie Derkins, the only character in the strip with both first and last names, is a classmate of Calvin who lives in his neighborhood. She first appeared early in the strip as a new student in Calvin's class. Unlike Calvin, she is polite and very smart and eager to improve in her studies and grades at school, and her imagination usually seems mild-mannered and calm, consisting of a standard young girls' games such as playing house or having tea parties with her stuffed animals. Her approach to these games is arguably more modern, however, some might say even skeptical. (In a game of "house" she usually casts herself as the traditional working wife while Calvin is the lousy and useless husband or some version similar to that.) "Derkins" was the nickname of Watterson's wife's family beagle, and he liked the name so much he named this character after it. As much as either of them hate to admit, Calvin and Susie have quite a bit in common. (Susie is shown on occasion with a stuffed rabbit known as "Mr. Bun," and Calvin always has Hobbes.)

Watterson admits that Calvin and Susie have a bit of a wild crush on each other (Said by Calvin, "It's shameless the way we flirt."), and that Susie is inspired by the type of women Watterson himself finds attractive (which has led to speculation that Susie is based on Watterson's wife). Her relationship with Calvin, though, is frequently conflicted, and never really becomes sorted out, and the closest things are times when Calvin sends dead flowers and hate-mail as Valentine's Day gifts for his own enjoyment. (She feels he likes her enough to send her that gift, and he rejoices in her noticing.)

Sometimes Hobbes does something to attract Susie's romantic attention. He is often successful and this makes Calvin angry and jealous. Although on the surface these events take the form of Hobbes teasing Calvin and showing off his charms, they may be Calvin's way to disguise his own crush on Susie, by pretending that it is Hobbes' crush instead.

Moe
Moe is a bully, "a six-year-old who shaves" who is always pushing Calvin against walls, forcing to give him to give away his lunch money, and calling him "Twinky." Moe is the only regular character who speaks in an unusual font: his (frequently monosyllabic) dialogue is shown in rough, lower-case letters. Watterson describes Moe as "every jerk I've ever known." And while Moe is not smart, he is, as Calvin puts it, streetwise. That means, as Calvin says, "he knows what street he lives on".

Miss Wormwood
Miss Wormwood is Calvin's bored and depressed teacher, named after the apprentice devil in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. She continuously wears polka-dotted dresses, and serves like others as a foil to Calvin's rude behavior. Calvin's response to the boring studies of schoolwork is endless dreams of his imagination. She is eagerly waiting to retire, taking a large amount of medication, and is apparently a heavy smoker and alcohol drinker.

Although time does change in the Calvin and Hobbes universe, which is mostly seen in the changing of the season, Calvin (and Susie) returns to Ms. Wormwood's first-grade class every fall.

As usual, for an adult entering Calvin's world, Miss Wormwood sees things differently from Calvin. For example, when she talks to Calvin about his missing homework, Calvin's Spaceman Spiff persona sees her as a large slimy threatening snarling alien. "Slowly, carefully, Spiff draws his death-ray blaster".

Rosalyn
Rosalyn is a teenage high school senior student and the person who watches Calvin whenever Calvin's parents go on a night out together. She is the only babysitter able to put up with Calvin's bad behavior, which she uses to demand raises and advance payment from Calvin's desperate parents. She is also, according to Watterson, the only person Calvin truly fears— certainly she is his equal in sneakiness, and is willing to play as dirty as he does. Rosalyn has a habit of sending him to bed at 6:30, which he refuses to do, and only makes more trouble. Rosalyn's boyfriend, Charlie, never appears in the strip, but calls her on the telephone sometimes. Calvin often cuts short these calls. Originally, she was created as a nameless, one-time only character with no plans to appear again; however, Watterson decided he wanted to keep her unique ability to scare Calvin, which led to many more appearances.

At one time during the strip shown in the book collection "The Revenge of the Babysat", Calvin's parents prepare to go out on a night with a dinner and a movie while leaving Calvin with Rosalyn. When he finds out she is coming, Calvin runs up to Hobbes and explains the situation. Later when Rosalyn appears, Calvin and Hobbes hear that Rosalyn needs to study for a big science test. They decide to ruin her studying. After Calvin's parents leave, Calvin approaches Rosalyn, curious about what she's doing. After slyly talking her away from her science notes, he quickly grabs them, runs to the bathroom door with Hobbes, and locks the door while Rosalyn yells from he outside demanding her notes back. Once they "flushed" her notes (in which they only pretended to and flushed an empty toilet). Moments later when the wonder if Rosalyn has gone, Calvin opens the door only to find Rosalyn pounce upon him and throw him to bed at 7 o'clock which Hobbes notes that they went to bed 30 minutes later than usual. The ending shows Calvin's parents coming back home to find Rosalyn charge extra money for the job while Calvin's parents argue if there's another babysitter in town.

Common subjects

Calvin's other personalities
 Stupendous man: Calvin imagines himself as a superhero by wearing a cape and mask made by his mom. He imagines other people as villains and he fights them. For example, he calls his mother "Mom-Lady". He calls his teacher "Crab Teacher", and Susie,"Annoying Girl". His babysitter, Rosalyn, is known as "Babysitter Girl".

Snowballs and snowmen
During the winter, Calvin likes to make ugly or frightening snowmen when once Calvin created the "Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons". Also, his snowmen creations have had snowmen with missing or multiple heads, snowmen taking another's head for a bowling ball, and snowmen being "knocked over" by his family's car.

Also, Calvin frequently throws snowballs at Susie, most likely having himself being chased by Susie. Once Calvin (while in his "Stupendous Man" alter-ego) also made a gigantic snowball and dropped it at Susie while on top of a tree, as where Susie's mom described it as a "the size of a bowling ball".

Monsters under the bed
The monsters under the bed are described as scary, octopus-tentacled shaped creatures that lived under Calvin's bed every time he went to sleep. Often, they would try to bribe Calvin to come under the bed by giving him a new toy or by urging Hobbes to push Calvin over in return for a fresh piece of salmon. According to Calvin he'd usually describe them as "all fangs and no brains". They often lie to Calvin when he asks "how many monsters are under my bed?, when they'd usually reply there's "only one" or "none and go to sleep". Although various monsters were known to exist under Calvin's bed, two named monsters "Maurice" and "Winslow" appeared and re-appeared during the strip's middle times.

G.R.O.S.S.
Get Rid Of Slimy Girls is Calvin's anti-girl club. The club's goal is to annoy and bother girls, and  Calvin's main target is Susie Derkins. The club has only two members, Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin is "supreme dictator-for-life" and Hobbes is the "first tiger". They two usually make plans like throwing water balloons or snowballs at Susie. Often these plans have a bad ending. However, every time G.R.O.S.S finishes a mission or meeting, they always get awards such as medals, honors, and promotions. Of course, the word "gross" also means disgusting.

School and homework
Calvin hates school and homework so much. He usually tries to avoid them. His Mom always makes him ride the school bus even though he does not want to, and sometimes tries to run home and not go to class. In one Sunday comic strip, Calvin's imagination became so wild and creative that he imagined getting in a F-15 Eagle airplane and blasting his elementary school to pieces with many missiles.

References

Other websites

The following links were last verified August 27, 2006.

 Official websites
 Official Calvin and Hobbes site
 Publisher Andrews McMeel's official Calvin and Hobbes site

 Further reading
 Chris Suellentrop. "The last great newspaper comic strip", Slate magazine, November 7, 2005.
 "Missing! Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. ", Cleveland Scene, November 26, 2003
 Neely Tucker. "The Tiger Strikes Again", The Washington Post'', October 4, 2005

Comic strips

Calvin and Hobbes


In thermodynamics, dissipation is the result of an irreversible process that affects a thermodynamic system. In a dissipative process, energy (internal, bulk flow kinetic, or system potential) transforms from an initial form to a final form, where the capacity of the final form to do thermodynamic work is less than that of the initial form. For example, transfer of energy as heat is dissipative because it is a transfer of energy other than by thermodynamic work or by transfer of matter, and spreads previously concentrated energy. Following the second law of thermodynamics, in conduction and radiation from one body to another, the entropy varies with temperature (reduces the capacity of the combination of the two bodies to do work), but never decreases in an isolated system.

In mechanical engineering, dissipation is the irreversible conversion of mechanical energy into thermal energy with an associated increase in entropy.

Processes with defined local temperature produce entropy at a certain rate. The entropy production rate times local temperature gives the dissipated power. Important examples of irreversible processes are: heat flow through a thermal resistance, fluid flow through a flow resistance, diffusion (mixing), chemical reactions, and electric current flow through an electrical resistance (Joule heating).

Definition
Dissipative thermodynamic processes are essentially irreversible because they produce entropy. Planck regarded friction as the prime example of an irreversible thermodynamic process. In a process in which the temperature is locally continuously defined, the local density of rate of entropy production times local temperature gives the local density of dissipated power.

A particular occurrence of a dissipative process cannot be described by a single individual Hamiltonian formalism. A dissipative process requires a collection of admissible individual Hamiltonian descriptions, exactly which one describes the actual particular occurrence of the process of interest being unknown. This includes friction and hammering, and all similar forces that result in decoherency of energy—that is, conversion of coherent or directed energy flow into an indirected or more isotropic distribution of energy.

Energy
"The conversion of mechanical energy into heat is called energy dissipation." – François Roddier The term is also applied to the loss of energy due to generation of unwanted heat in electric and electronic circuits.

Computational physics
In computational physics, numerical dissipation (also known as "Numerical diffusion") refers to certain side-effects that may occur as a result of a numerical solution to a differential equation. When the pure advection equation, which is free of dissipation, is solved by a numerical approximation method, the energy of the initial wave may be reduced in a way analogous to a diffusional process. Such a method is said to contain 'dissipation'. In some cases, "artificial dissipation" is intentionally added to improve the numerical stability characteristics of the solution.

Mathematics
A formal, mathematical definition of dissipation, as commonly used in the mathematical study of measure-preserving dynamical systems, is given in the article wandering set.

Examples

In hydraulic engineering
Dissipation is the process of converting mechanical energy of downward-flowing water into thermal and acoustical energy. Various devices are designed in stream beds to reduce the kinetic energy of flowing waters to reduce their erosive potential on banks and river bottoms. Very often, these devices look like small waterfalls or cascades, where water flows vertically or over riprap to lose some of its kinetic energy.

Irreversible processes
Important examples of irreversible processes are:
 Heat flow through a thermal resistance
 Fluid flow through a flow resistance
 Diffusion (mixing)
 Chemical reactions
 Electrical current flow through an electrical resistance (Joule heating).

Waves or oscillations
Waves or oscillations, lose energy over time, typically from friction or turbulence. In many cases, the "lost" energy raises the temperature of the system. For example, a wave that loses amplitude is said to dissipate. The precise nature of the effects depends on the nature of the wave: an atmospheric wave, for instance, may dissipate close to the surface due to friction with the land mass, and at higher levels due to radiative cooling.

History

The concept of dissipation was introduced in the field of thermodynamics by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in 1852. Lord Kelvin deduced that a subset of the above-mentioned irreversible dissipative processes will occur unless a process is governed by a "perfect thermodynamic engine". The processes that Lord Kelvin identified were friction, diffusion, conduction of heat and the absorption of light.

See also
Entropy production
General equation of heat transfer
Flood control
Principle of maximum entropy
Two-dimensional gas

References

Thermodynamic processes
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
Dynamical systems

Dissipation


The stiff-tailed ducks are part of the Oxyurinae subfamily of ducks. All have, as their name implies, long stiff tail feathers, which are erect when the bird is at rest. All have relatively large swollen bills.

These are freshwater diving ducks. Their legs are set far back, making them awkward on land, so they rarely leave the water.

Their unusual displays involve drumming noises from inflatable throat-sacs, head throwing, and erecting short crest.

Feather sequences are complicated, and it is hard to tell how old one of these ducks is. Feathers are vital for survival because of this animals tendency to spend time in the water. Without feathers this duck would die of hypothermia because it could not regulate its body temperature.

Ducks

Stiff-tailed duck


A river is a stream of water that flows through a channel on the surface of the ground. The passage where the river flows is called the river bed and the earth on each side is called a river bank. A river begins on high ground or in hills or mountains and flows down from the high ground to the lower ground, because of gravity. A river begins as a small stream, and gets bigger the farther it flows.

River parts

The beginning of a river
The start of a river is called the source or head water. The part of the river that is near the source is called a 'young' river. A young river is often in a V-shaped river bed, and flows quickly downhill over stones, and around big rocks. Young rivers often have lots of small waterfalls and rapids. As the rivers travel downhill they begin to erode the ground taking small bits of soft rock and soil.
 The source of a river may be a spring, often on a hill, mountain, glacier, or another high place. A spring is water that flows out from under the ground.
 The source of a river may be a lake where lots of water from small streams gathers when it rains or snows.
 A river may begin in mountains where there is snow. The melting snow runs together to form a small stream that runs down the mountain. As more little streams run in, the main stream gets bigger, until it forms a river.
 Some rivers flow from hills where there is no snow, but lots of rain.
 Some rivers only flow after there has been rain near the head water.

The middle part of a river
The middle part of a river is called a mature river. A mature river makes a riverbed that is U-shaped. It might be very deep and run fast. It sweeps over small rocks and boulders, and makes big turns around hills and mountains. It is much wider than a young river, but not as wide as an old river. To cross over a mature river, people use bridges. Many cities and towns are built on the banks of mature rivers. Many farms that keep animals such as dairy cows, horses and sheep are along mature rivers because the animals can drink from the river every day.

The last part of a river
A river usually ends by flowing into an ocean, a lake or a bigger river. The place where the river flows out into a bigger body of water is called the 'mouth' of the river.

As a river flows towards its mouth, the countryside around the river often changes from hilly to flat. As it flows over the flat land the river becomes wider and slower. A wide slow river is called an 'old river'. An old river often floods across the land after there is lots of rain at the headwaters. An old river slowly builds up its banks on either side; the high banks are called levees. An old river often meanders (twists and turns), and sometimes, after a flood, it leaves lakes behind which are called ox-bows or billabongs. Old rivers are the most useful type of river for growing crops. Corn, rice, fruit, cotton, hay, tobacco and sugar are some of the crops that are grown near old rivers.

The shape of the mouth depends on the conditions of the sea where it flows. If there is a strong tide where the river meets the sea, the river forms an estuary. An estuary is a wide, funnel-like mouth of the river. The fresh water of the river mixes slowly with the salt water, becoming brackish water – somewhat salty water. Many kinds of fish, clams, molluscs and other sealife live at estuaries. Many of the world's largest cities and harbours are at estuaries.

Where a river flows out to the sea, it sometimes flows very slowly through sandy or muddy land, making lots of little islands as it flows. The main stream of the river gets broken into many parts that spread out into a triangle shape like the Greek letter delta. When this happens, it is called the delta of the river. Deltas are often places that are not good for towns or farms but are very good for birds and other wildlife and fishing. Deltas are often made into wildlife reserves. Not all rivers have deltas. There are deltas on the Nile River, the Amazon River, the Mekong River, the Mississippi River and the Danube River.

Underground rivers
Some rivers flow underground through caves. Underground rivers form in places where there are lots of cracks in the rocks above, so that in rainy weather, the water runs downs and collects in small underground streams. Sometimes the underground water trickles or gushes out of the ground to form a small spring of water. In other places, where there are caves, the small underground streams run together to form a river. The river can sometimes run through deep wide underground caverns. While many underground rivers flow gently, some underground rivers flow fast and have rapids, particularly after heavy rain. Many underground rivers flow out through a cave mouth to become an ordinary river.

Using rivers
The water in rivers is "fresh water" that has come from rain, snow and from underground streams. It can usually be drunk safely by people unless it is too dirty because of mud or human pollution. People and animals need fresh water to drink, so they often live by the side of a river.
 Rivers give water for drinking, bathing and washing clothes.
 Rivers give water for cattle and other animals to drink and for people to grow plants.
 Rivers give products that are useful to people such as fish for food, clay for bricks and reeds to make the roofs of houses.
 Rivers can be used for transporting people, crops and other goods by boat.
 Rivers can be used to give power to turn machinery such as water mills.
 Rivers give water for factories that make cloth, steel and many other products.
 Rivers sometimes have dams to hold the water for people to drink, or to make electricity.
 Rivers can be used for leisure and sports such as swimming, boating, fishing and just walking by the river.
 Rivers often have beautiful scenery. Many painters, story-tellers, and poets have painted or written about rivers.
 Rivers are sometimes turned into canals.

Water for living

Water for industry

Water for fun

Rivers in art, literature and music
 Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, (novel)
 Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, (novel)

Rivers in photography

Important rivers

 Amazon River in South America is a very wide tropical river flowing through the Amazon Jungle and into the Atlantic Ocean through a large delta. Many types of fish live in it. It is the largest river in the world.
 Nile River in Africa. For thousands of years this river has provided the people of Egypt with water to help their food grow. Cairo, the biggest city in Egypt and Africa, is built near the Nile's delta on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the longest river in the world.
 Mississippi River in the United States. Many crops are grown along the sides of the Mississippi. It was also used for transport. The Mississippi flows through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
 Yangtze River, a very large river in China, the third longest in the world, and the longest in Asia
 Rhine River
 Rivers Tigris and Euphrates
 Ganges River
 Mekong River
 River Danube
 Volga River
 St. Lawrence River
 Murray River in Australia, 1609 miles in length.
 Congo River
 Niger River
 River Thames
 Tiber River

River terminology
 A meander is a bend or curve in a river.
 The mouth of a river is where the river enters the sea, ocean or lake.
 An oxbow lake is located at the side of a river and is curved like a "meander"
 A braided river is a usually slow-moving river which splits up and joins repeatedly.

Other types of rivers
 A submarine river is a stream of water that flows along under the surface of an ocean. One of them, named the Cromwell current, was found in 1952. ("Sub marine" comes from Latin and means "under sea".)
 A subterranean river is a river which flows under the surface of the earth. One of them was found in August 1958 under the Nile River. (The term "sub terranean" also comes from Latin and means "under ground".)

Related pages
 Water
 Valley
 Lake
 Flood
 Drought
 Erosion

References

Basic English 850 words

Biomes

River


Spain is a country in Europe.

Early History
People have lived on the Iberian Peninsula for about 500,000 years. Neanderthal man came about 200,000 years ago. Modern humans first came about 40,000 years. Thousands of years ago Iberians and Celts lived there, and the Phoenicians made a few cities there to get tin and silver to trade.

The Roman Empire controlled Spain for three hundred years; then people from Eastern Europe called Visigoths fought for Spain, won it from the Romans, and controlled Spain for over two hundred years.

Medieval times
The Visigoths converted from Arian Christianity to Roman Catholics. Muslims who were Arab and Berber invaded in 711 and conquered Spain in 718. They called it Al-Andalus. Roman Catholics eventually decided to fight to take Spain back from the Muslims. They fought wars called the reconquista for more than seven hundred years. They also fought Crusades against other Christians like the Cathars. The Moors also fought each other for control of Al-Andalus.

In the year 1492, they took the last part of Spain that had belonged to the Moors. Boabdil, the last Moorish Leader of Granada, gave the city to King Ferdinand of Aragon on 2 January 1492, and Christians now ruled all of Spain.

Before this, several different kings had ruled different countries in what is now called Spain. Two of these countries, Castile and Aragon, came together when the king of Aragon, Ferdinand II, married the queen of Castile, Isabella.

In the same year, 1492, they decided to send Christopher Columbus to explore the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus found a land there that the people of Europe did not yet know. These were the islands of the Caribbean Sea.

Late 15th century
Columbus and other sailors explored more and found that there were two continents there - North America and South America. Spain sent many soldiers and businessmen to North and South America, and they took over very large parts of those two continents. Owning this empire made Spain very rich. But when they conquered that empire, they killed millions of the Native Americans who had lived there before. Spain owned this empire for more than three hundred years.

Meanwhile, at home, the Muslim manuscripts had been either burnt or spread to other countries. Jews had been expelled from Spain. The multicultural society was destroyed, and so was the learning. Among the few things kept and respected in Spain were in music: harmony and stringed instruments, and of course the buildings, many of which became churches, by adding crosses.

16th and 17th centuries
The Spanish Empire was the strongest in the world through most of the next two centuries, thanks to gold from the Americas. This new gold made rulers and colonial governors rich. Meanwhile, others' savings became worth less due to inflation. Spain became a society of very rich and very poor. Some of the poorest went to the new colonies in the Caribbean, Central America and South America, mostly to find gold.

Native American peoples were killed by diseases brought by the Spaniards, but most Spaniards did not know this. They found damaged and dying societies with people who had lost some of their most important leaders and thinkers. The Spaniards thought this meant they were inferior, and used this as an excuse to enslave the natives. Millions of natives died mining gold for the Spanish.

The Spanish Empire also at this time funded the Spanish Inquisition which tortured and killed anyone who disagreed with the Roman Catholic Church. The Reformation which created Protestant sects in Europe was not allowed into Spain, it was kept out and, as with Jews or Muslims, its believers were killed.

The nobles of Spain no longer had to fight anyone since the internal feuds were over. No one could challenge their power. In many ways it was held together as a reign of terror. People who challenged them were often called heretics, so that the Inquisition could torture them, and then nobles take the property.

For ordinary people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, life got worse. A few rulers got rich. Today we would say that these people were guilty of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Many Church people who had the power to speak out at that time, did so, and they said many of the same things as we would say today. But none of this mattered much to the rulers.

The great satire Don Quixote was written about this time.

18th century
In the 18th century, there was doubt over who should become king of Spain; this doubt led many of the kings of Europe to fight to become king of Spain. This was called the War of the Spanish Succession.

France occupied Spain for a long time. This made Spain very weak. It also made Spain lose its empire in North and South America; all of the parts of that empire became their own countries, or were taken over by other countries such as the United States of America.

20th century
There was not much peace in Spain during the first part of the 20th century. Some Spaniards tried to set up a government chosen by the people (a democracy), and they made the King of Spain leave the country. However, in 1936, two different groups of Spaniards went to war over whether the government should be a democracy, or take orders from one person. In 1939, those who wanted democracy were defeated, and a dictator named Francisco Franco took over the government.

Franco died in 1975. He had decided that Spain should have a king again, and he chose Juan Carlos, the grandson of the king who had been forced to leave the country, to be king. But the king did not rule as a dictator; instead, he chose to set up a democracy. Also since Franco's death, Spain appointed Adolfo Suárez to became Spain's first democratically elected prime minister. Now Spain is a modern democratic country, and does business with many countries around the world. It is a part of the European Union.

History of Spain


The Caribbean Community , or CARICOM, is a group of nations in the Caribbean Sea that have come together founded on 4 July 1973. They share their products, and they have a government to help organize the area. They are mainly together to help trade and their economies.

The full members are:

 Barbados
 Belize
 Dominica
 Grenada
 Guyana
 Haiti
 Jamaica
 Montserrat (a territory of the United Kingdom)
 Saint Kitts and Nevis
 Saint Lucia
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
 Suriname
 Trinidad and Tobago
 United States

1973 establishments

Caribbean Community


Colin J. Campbell (24 July 1931 – 13 November 2022) was a British petroleum geologist who predicted that oil production would peak by 2007. He claimed the consequences of this are uncertain but drastic, due to the world's dependency on fossil fuels for the vast majority of its energy. His theories have received wide attention but are disputed and have not significantly changed governmental energy policies at this time. To deal with declining global oil production, he proposed the Rimini protocol.

Influential papers by Campbell include The Coming Oil Crisis, written with Jean Laherrère in 1998 and credited with convincing the International Energy Agency of the coming peak; and The End of Cheap Oil, published the same year in Scientific American.

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, founded by Campbell in 2000, has been gaining recognition in the recent years. The association has organised yearly international conferences since 2002. The most recent conference of the USA chapter (ASPO-USA) was at the University of Texas in Austin, TX on 30 November and 1 December 2012.

Remarks
The most famous peak oil petrogeologist is M. King Hubbert, who predicted in 1956 that oil production would peak in the United States between 1965 and 1970. US oil production peaked in 1970. Hubbert's theories, particularly his evaluation of oil availability in any given area reaching a peak, to be followed by inevitable and sometimes rapid decline, were expounded in his Hubbert peak theory, and became popular during the 1973 energy crisis, and during the 1979 energy crisis when even the United States Secretary of Energy, James Schlesinger announced, as he left his post that year, that 'Mid-East production is unlikely to expand much, if at all, and is unlikely to drop below current levels'. (Wall Street Journal 1979). In December 2000 Colin Campbell warned in a public lecture held at the Clausthal University of Technology that

'There is, I think, a strong danger of some ill-considered military intervention to try to secure oil. A stock market crash seems inevitable, as some investment managers are now telling us. The global market may collapse because of high transport costs and global recession. Self-sufficiency will become a priority.'

Current debate

Global oil discovery peaked in 1964, and since the early 1980s oil production has outpaced new discoveries.

According to Campbell:

 There are no new potential oil fields sufficiently large to reduce this future energy crisis.
 The reported oil reserves of many OPEC countries are inflated, to increase their quotas, or improve their chance of getting a loan from the World Bank.
 The practice of gradually adding new discoveries to a country's list of proven reserves, instead of all at once, artificially inflates the current rate of discovery.

In 1989 Campbell claimed that there would be a shortage towards the late 1990s. In 1990 he claimed that 1998 would represent a "depletion midpoint." These early assessments were, however, according to Campbell himself, "based on public domain data, before the degree of misreporting by industry and governments was appreciated."

A 2007 study of oil depletion by the UK Energy Research Centre stated that Campbell failed to take into account future reserve growth in existing fields. The authors concluded that curve-fitting techniques, such as Campbell's, tended to underestimate ultimate recoverable reserves. The report cited Campbell's record of premature peak predictions, systematically shifting forward over time, as evidence that his methodology was flawed.

The US Department of Energy report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, often referred to as the Hirsch Report, proposes an urgent mitigation approach to deal with the possibility of oil production going into decline in the immediate future.

It states: "The peaking of world oil production presents the US and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

Activities
Campbell had over 40 years of experience in the oil industry. He was educated at St Paul's School and Wadham College, Oxford (BA Geology 1954, MA and DPhil 1957), and worked as a petroleum geologist in the field, as a manager, and as a consultant. He was employed by Oxford University, Texaco, British Petroleum, Amoco, Shenandoah Oil, Norsk Hydro, and Petrofina, and worked with the Bulgarian and Swedish governments. His writing included two books and more than 150 papers.

Later, he founded the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, was affiliated with Petroconsultants in Geneva, was a trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London. He conducted research on the oil peak, and he also tried to build public awareness of the issue, which included lecturing extensively. He addressed a committee of the British House of Commons, and officials from investment and automotive companies. He appeared in the documentary films The End of Suburbia, Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, and Peak Oil – Imposed by Nature.

Personal life
Campbell resided in Ballydehob, a small town in South West Cork, Ireland with his wife Bobbins. He died at his home in Ireland on 13 November 2022, at the age of 91.

Quotes
"But this peak has no real great significance, it is the perception and the vision of the long decline that comes into sight on the other side of the peak. That's really what matters." (speaking on the peak oil phenomenon, from End of Oil (2005))

"It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone." (on peak oil, in 2007)

"Banks had been lending more than they had on deposit assuming that tomorrow's growth was collateral for today's debt but failing to see that growth depends on growing, cheap, oil-based energy...So in short, Peak Oil means that debt goes bad." (speaking on the 2008 crash at the New Energy Era Forum, 8 May 2012)

See also
 Kenneth S. Deffeyes
 Jean Laherrère
 Thomas Malthus, and the Malthusian catastrophe.
 Dale Allen Pfeiffer

References

Further reading

 Dire prophecy: as prices soar, doomsayers provoke debate on oil's future, by Jeffrey Ball from The Wall Street Journal, volume 244, number 57, 21 September 2004.
 The end of cheap oil, by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère. Scientific American, March 1998.
 The Coming Oil Crisis, by Colin J. Campbell. Independent Publishers Group, 1 April 2004. .
 The Truth about Oil and the Looming Energy Crisis, by Colin J. Campbell. (booklet; no ISBN)
 Peak Oil Personalities, edited by Colin J. Campbell. Inspire Books, 25 September 2012. .

External links
 Arrival of Peak Oil as an Historic Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaiHXt1AtO0' (Sept. 2009 video interview with Colin Campbell by Dave Bowden, Oil Education TV / SustainableMedia.net)
 Peak Oil: Off Limits to Government & Industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSrxwO6i0A4' (Sept. 2009 video interview with Colin Campbell by Dave Bowden, Oil Education TV / SustainableMedia.net)
 Peak Oil – A Turning Point for Mankind (video lecture) by Dr. Colin J. Campbell, at the Clausthal University of Technology, Dec. 2000.
 The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) – official website
 ASPO Ireland (Colin Campbell's Office)
 Colin J. Campbell from the Coming Global Oil Crisis. 2004.
 Colin Campbell interviewed, by Julian Darley. Global Public Media, 18 December 2002.
 ASPO newsletter, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell.
 ASPO depletion profiles by country, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell.
 Depletion model, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell.
 ASPO Lisbon Conference 2005
 Speech by Dr. Colin J. Campbell at 'Fuelling the Future' conference, in Kinsale, Ireland, June 2005.
 Energy Bulletin
 Peak Oil – A Turning Point for Mankind Dr. Colin J. Campbell speaking at the New Energy Era Form, 8 May 2012

1931 births
2022 deaths
Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford
20th-century British geologists
21st-century British geologists
People in the petroleum industry
People educated at St Paul's School, London
Scientists from Berlin
People from Ballydehob
Scientists from County Cork

Colin Campbell (geologist)


An inductor is an electrical device used in electrical circuits because it acts like inertia in the electrical circuit. Just like inertia opposes the change in state of motion, inductor opposes the change in electric current.

An inductor is usually made from a coil of conducting material, like copper wire, that is then wrapped around a core made from either air or a magnetic metal.  If you use a more magnetic material as the core, you can get the magnetic field around the inductor to be pushed in towards the inductor, giving it better inductance.  Small inductors can also be put onto integrated circuits using the same ways that are used to make transistors.  Aluminum is usually used as the conducting material in this case.

How inductors work

While a capacitor reacts against changes in voltage, an inductor reacts against changes in current. The inductor affects the current like inertia.

In general, the relationship between the time-varying voltage v(t) across an inductor with inductance L and the time-varying current i(t) passing through it is described by the differential equation:

How inductors are used
Inductors are used often in analog circuits. Two or more inductors that have coupled magnetic flux make a transformer. Transformers are used in every power grid around the world.

Inductors are also used in electrical transmission systems, where they are used to lower the amount of voltage an electrical device gives off or lower the fault current.
Because inductors are heavier than other electrical components, people have been using them in electrical equipment less often.

Inductors with an iron core are used for audio equipment, power conditioning, inverter systems, rapid transit and industrial power supplies.

Electrical engineers like to reduce diagrams of electrical circuits, no matter how complicated, to an equivalent circuit consisting of a network of just four different types of component.  These four basic components are emfs, resistors, capacitors, and inductors.  An inductor is usually represented by a little solenoid in circuit diagrams. In practice, inductors generally consist of short air-cored solenoids wound from enameled copper wire.

Related pages
Magnetic charge
Transformer
Coil
Resistor
Capacitor
Magnetic core
Induction coil
Induction loop

References

Other websites

 How stuff works How inductors work, made very simple.

Electronic components

Inductor


Beatrice of Savoy (1250–1292) was the daughter of Amadeus IV the Count of Savoy and his second wife, Cecile of Baux. She was a member of the House of Savoy by birth, by her second marriage she became known as Lady of Villena.

Beatrice was a full sister to Boniface, Count of Savoy, as well as two sisters Eleanor and Constance. She had two older half-sisters from her father's first marriage, an elder Beatrice and Margaret.

Upon the death of her father in 1253, Beatrice received an amount of money as an inheritance. Upon the death of her ten-year-old brother Count Boniface, he was succeeded by their uncle as Peter II, Count of Savoy. Upon Peter's death, Beatrice had to renounce her claim on Savoy along with the consent of her mother in favor of the succession of her other uncle as Philip I, Count of Savoy, in the article (dated 21 October 1268) she is referred to as Contesson  possibly to distinguish her from her older half-sister of the same name. A charter dated 11 August 1266 by Pope Clement IV presumably tells of Count Philip donating property to his niece "B" most likely referring to Beatrice.

Beatrice was firstly betrothed to James, second son of James I of Aragon however, the contract was broken on 11 August 1266. Ten years after the betrothal was broken, James became King of Majorca.

Beatrice firstly married on 21 October 1268 to Peter of Chalon, Seigneur de Châtelbelin, son of Jean l'Antique. Peter granted property to his wife in 1269. The couple were married for no more than six years when Peter died, they had no children.

A second marriage in 1275 took place with Manuel of Castile; this was a second marriage for both parties, Manuel's first wife Constance (sister to Beatrice's one-time fiancee James) had died leaving him with two children. Manuel and Beatrice had one son Juan Manuel who was born in Escalona on 5 May 1282. Manuel died a year after the birth of their son therefore he was succeeded by their son as Manuel's other son by Constance had died young. Beatrice cared for her son until her own death nine years later, after which time Juan Manuel was left in the care of his uncle, Sancho IV of Castile.

Notes

References

Sources

House of Savoy
1292 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Swiss nobility
1250 births
13th-century people from Savoy
Burials at Hautecombe Abbey

Beatrice of Savoy, Lady of Villena