Watchmen is a Hugo Award-winning graphic novel. It was written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and published by DC Comics from 1986–1987. In 2005, Time magazine listed Watchmen as one "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present".

Story
Watchmen is set in an alternate history during the 1980s. The United States is about to enter a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Earlier, superheroes helped the United States win the Vietnam War. Now, superheroes work for the government (Doctor Manhattan, The Comedian), are retired (Nite Owl, Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, Silk Spectre), or work illegally (Rorschach).

After The Comedian is murdered, the other superheroes work together to figure out the killer's identity. In the beginning, Rorschach believes other superheroes are in danger and warns them. Soon after, Doctor Manhattan leaves Earth for Mars, creating more turmoil. Nite Owl starts to believe Rorschach. Together they discover Adrian Veidt has murdered The Comedian and framed Doctor Manhattan to protect his plan. Veidt says he wants to fake an alien invasion to avoid an atomic war.

By this time, Veidt's plan has already occurred. Many New York City residents have been killed. Doctor Manhattan kills Rorschach, the only superhero who wanted to reveal Veidt's secret. All living superheroes have now retired. The world is unified.

References

Comics
Hugo Award winning books

Watchmen


The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Finance (Norwegian: Finansdepartementet) is a Norwegian ministry established in 1814. The ministry is responsible for state finance, including the state budget, taxation and economic policy in Norway. It is led by Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Centre Party). The department must report to the Parliament of Norway.

Organization
The ministry is divided into the following sections:
 Political staff
 Information Unit
 Asset Management Department
 Budget Department
 Financial Markets Department
 Tax Law Department
 Tax Policy Department
 Economic Policy Department
 Department of Administrative Affairs

Subsidiaries
The following government agencies are subordinate to the ministry:
 Pension Fund Global
 National Insurance Scheme Fund
 Bank of Norway
 Norwegian Customs and Excise Authorities
 Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority
 Norwegian Government Agency for Financial Management
 Norwegian National Collection Agency
 Norwegian Tax Administration
 Statistics Norway

The ministry also owns 19.1% of the Nordic Investment Bank

See also
 List of Norwegian Ministers of Finance

References

External links
 Official web site

Finance
Finance in Norway
Finance ministries
Public finance of Norway
Ministries established in 1814
1814 establishments in Norway

Ministry of Finance (Norway)


The Massachusetts Circular Letter was a statement written by Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr., and passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives (as constituted in the government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, not the current constitution) in February 1768 in response to the Townshend Acts. Reactions to the letter brought heightened tensions between the British Parliament and Massachusetts, and resulted in the military occupation of Boston by the British Army, which contributed to the coming of the American Revolution.

Background
After the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, the British Parliament imposed the Townshend Acts in 1767 as another way of generating revenue. The acts placed an import duty on glass, paint, paper, lead, and tea as well as establishing an American Board of Customs. In response, the Massachusetts General Court issued a circular letter. (A circular letter, also known as a circular, is a letter meant to be widely distributed, or "circulated".) The Massachusetts Circular Letter was sent to the representative bodies of the other colonies. Massachusetts received positive responses from New Jersey, Connecticut, and the Virginia House of Burgesses.

The letter
In the Circular Letter, Samuel Adams argued that the Townshend Acts were unconstitutional because the colony of Massachusetts was not represented in Parliament. Adams maintained that Parliament's status as the supreme legislative body of the British Empire did not permit it to violate the British Constitution and the natural rights of the colonists. Adams made it clear that he was not advocating colonial representation in Parliament: because the American Colonies were "separated by an ocean of a thousand leagues" from Great Britain, he thought it was impractical for them to be properly represented in Parliament. Instead, Adams argued in favor of the previous arrangement, where the colonies were taxed only by their own provincial assemblies in which they were already represented.

Consequences
After the Circular Letter had been passed and issued to other colonies, Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies, ordered the Massachusetts General Court to revoke it. The body voted 92-17 not to do so. In response to the General Court's defiance, Governor Francis Bernard dissolved the assembly. This led to an outbreak of mob violence from colonists who no longer had any legal way to deal with their grievances. They attacked customs officials, making it impossible for them to perform their duties. In response to the deteriorating situation, Lord Hillsborough sent four regiments of British soldiers to Boston. Arriving in October 1768, the soldiers only increased the tensions, as recorded in the anonymously penned "Journal of Occurrences", which chronicled the occupation. These tensions culminated on March 5, 1770 with the Boston Massacre.

References

External links
Text of the Circular Letter

Massachusetts in the American Revolution
Laws leading to the American Revolution
1768 in the Thirteen Colonies
1768 in the Province of Massachusetts Bay
American political philosophy literature
1768 documents
Samuel Adams

Massachusetts Circular Letter


The Council of the European Union (often called Council of Ministers or just Council) is one of the three organisations that manage the European Union. Along with the European Parliament, it is responsible for law making for the European Union (EU).

Its members are the government ministers of the member countries who are responsible for the law that is being discussed. As an example, suppose the law is going to be about farming, then the Agriculture Ministers are the council for that day.

As well as making laws, they can meet to discuss their problems. For example, the European Union does not decide on tax - each country decides on its own tax. But the Finance Ministers meet anyway because sometimes they can help each other catch people who do not want to pay tax at all.

The council is called different things in different countries, according to the language they speak (for example in French it is Conseil de l'Union Européenne and in German it is Rat der Europäischen Union). It is also known internationally, and so it appears on its logo, with the Latin word Consilium.

A simple way of putting it, is that The 'Council of the European Union' is helped by most countries in the world and it is very important.

European Union
Legislatures

Council of the European Union


Eliakim Carmoly (5 August 1802 in Soultz-Haut-Rhin, France – 15 February 1875 in Frankfurt) was a French scholar. He was born at Soultz-Haut-Rhin, then in the French department of Haut-Rhin. His real name was Goschel David Behr (or Baer); the name Carmoly, borne by his family in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was adopted by him when quite young. He studied Hebrew and Talmud at Colmar; and, because both French and German were spoken in his native town, he became proficient in those languages.

Carmoly went to Paris, and there assiduously studied the old Hebrew manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he was employed. Several articles published by him on various subjects in scientific papers made him known; and on the establishment of a Jewish consistory in Belgium, he was appointed rabbi at Brussels (18 May 1832). In this position Carmoly rendered many services to the newly founded congregation, chiefly in providing schools for the poor. Seven years later, having provoked great opposition by his new scheme of reforms, Carmoly resigned the rabbinate and retired to Frankfort, where he devoted himself wholly to Jewish literature and to the collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts, in which he was passionately interested.

His grandfather was Isaachar Bär ben Judah Carmoly, rabbi of Sulz.

Works
Carmoly was the author of the following works:

 Toledot Gedole Yisrael, a biographical dictionary of eminent Jews, ancient and modern, Metz, 1828 (only one volume, extending to "Aaron ben Chayyim," was published)
 Wessely et Ses Écrits, Nancy, 1829
 Sibbub Rab Petachyah, the travels of Petachiah of Ratisbon, translated into French and accompanied by the Hebrew text, Paris, 1831
 Eldad ha-Dani: Relation d'Eldad le Danite, Voyageur du IXe; Siècle, Traduit en Français, Suivie du Texte et de Notes, Brussels, 1834
 Mémoire sur un Médaillon en l'Honneur de Louis-le-Débonnaire, ibid. 1839
 Maimonides und Seine Zeitgenossen, translated from the Hebrew into German, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1840
 Les Mille et Un Contes, Récits Chaldéens, Brussels, 1842
 'Aqtan de-Mar Ya'aqob, a kind of Midrash in six chapters on the Khazars, published for the first time from two manuscripts, ibid. 1842
 Eldad et Medad, ou le Joueur Converti, translated from Leo di Modena's work, with a biographical notice on the author, ibid. 1844
 Le Jardin Enchanté, Contes, ibid. 1845
 Sefer ha-Kuzarim: Des Khozars au Xe; Siècle, Suivi d'une Lettre du Ministre d'Abd el-Rachman III. au Roi de Khozarie et la Réponse du Prince, ibid. 1845
 Histoire des Médecins Juifs, Anciens et Modernes, ibid. 1844
 Halikot Eretz Yisrael: Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte des XIIIe-XVIIe Siècles, translated from the Hebrew, ibid. 1847
 Dibre ha-Yamim le-Bene Yachya [Yahya], genealogy and biography of the Yachya family, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1850
 Ha-'Orebim u-Bene Yonah (The Crows and the Doves), genealogy of the Rapoport family, Rödelheim, 1861
 Imre Shefer (Words of Beauty), on Hebrew versification, by Abshalom Mizrachi (fourteenth century), with an introduction and an appendix containing literary essays and poems by the editor, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1868
 La France Israélite; Mémoire pour Servir à l'Histoire de Notre Littérature, Paris, 1858
 Mebasseret Tzion (O Zion, That Bringest Good Tidings), a collection of letters from Jerusalem on the Lost Ten Tribes, Brussels, 1841

Besides these works, Carmoly contributed to many periodicals, and edited the Revue Orientale (Brussels, 1841–46, 3 vols.), in which most of the articles were furnished by himself. The most important of these contributions, which constitute works by themselves, were:

 "Vocabulaire de la Géographie Rabbinique de France"
 "Essai sur l'Histoire des Juifs en Belgique"
 "Mille Ans des Annales Israélites d'Italie"
 "De l'Etat des Israélites en Pologne"*
 "Des Juifs du Maroc, d'Alger, de Tunis, et de Tripoli, Depuis Leur Etablissement dans Ces Contrées Jusqu'à Nos Jours"

Controversy
Carmoly has been accused of fabrications by several scholars. In particular, his itinerary of Isaac Chelo is commonly believed to be a forgery. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia: "Carmoly's works have been severely attacked by the critics; and it must be admitted that his statements can not always be relied upon. Still, he rendered many services to Jewish literature and history; and the mistrust of his works is often unfounded."

References

1802 births
1875 deaths
People from Soultz-Haut-Rhin
Alsatian Jews
19th-century French rabbis
French book and manuscript collectors
Forgery controversies
Literary forgeries

Eliakim Carmoly


Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman's Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse (in Polish Pan Tadeusz, czyli ostatni zajazd na Litwie. Historia szlachecka z roku 1811 i 1812 we dwunastu księgach wierszem) is a long poem by Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz. It is regarded as a national epic. It was first published in Paris in 1834. The poet was then in exile in France. Sir Thaddeus is a story of a conflict between two noble families, the Soplicas and the Horeszkos. The time is 1811 and 1812, shortly before Napoleon invaded Russia. When attacked by Russian soldiers, both families fought against the enemy. The conflict between the families was ended with the marriage of Thaddeus Soplica and Sophia Horeszko.

Adam Mickiewicz was born in the East of the former Polish-Lithuanian state. Because of that he called Lithuania his mother-country.

Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie.
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie
Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.

Lithuania, my country, thou art like health; how much thou shouldst be prized only he can learn who has
lost thee. To-day thy beauty in all its splendour I see and describe, for I yearn for thee. (Translation in prose by George Rapall Noyes).

The poem is written in 13-syllable metre, very common in Polish literature.

References

Bibliography
 Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz; or The last foray in Lithuania; a story of life among Polish gentlefolk in the years 1811 and 1812, Translated from the Polish by George Rapall Noyes, London 1917.

Other websites
 Full text of the poem in Polish

Epic poems
1830s poems
Polish literature

Sir Thaddeus


Australia (officially called the Commonwealth of Australia) is a country and sovereign state in the southern hemisphere, located in Oceania. Its capital city is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney.

Australia is the sixth biggest country in the world by land area, and is part of the Oceanic and Australasian regions. Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and other islands on the Australian tectonic plate are together called Australasia, which is one of the world's great ecozones. When other Pacific islands are included with Australasia, it is called Oceania.

25 million people live in Australia, and about 85% of them live near the east coast. The country is divided up into six states and two territories, and more than half of Australia's population lives in and around the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The first people to live in the country were the Indigenous Australians: many of them died from smallpox during colonisation.

Australia is known for its mining (coal, iron, gold, diamonds and crystals), its production of wool, and as the world's largest producer of bauxite. Its emblem is a flower called the golden wattle.

Australia is also known for its animals and rich wildlife. The national symbols of Australia are the kangaroo and the golden wattle. Scientifically, perhaps even more important are its two monotreme mammals: the platypus and the echidna.

Geography

Australia's landmass of  is on the Indo-Australian plate. The continent of Australia, including the island of Tasmania, was separated from the other continents of the world many millions of years ago. Because of this, many animals and plants live in Australia that do not live anywhere else. These include animals like the kangaroo, the koala, the emu, the kookaburra, and the platypus.

People first arrived in Australia more than 50,000 years ago. These native Australians are called the Australian Aboriginals. For the history of Australia, see History of Australia.

Most of the Australian colonies, having been settled from Britain, became mostly independent democratic states in the 1850s and all six combined as a federation on 1 January 1901. The first Prime Minister of Australia was Edmund Barton in 1901. Australia is a member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with King Charles III as King of Australia and Head of State and a Governor-General who is chosen by the Prime Minister to carry out all the duties of the King in Australia.

Regions and cities

Australia has six states, two major mainland territories, and other minor territories. The states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania (which is a large island). The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory (which is huge) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) which is not much  more than a city.

The population is about 26 million people (2021 census = 25,890,773). Most Australians live in cities along the coast, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle and the Gold Coast. The largest inland city is Canberra, which is also the nation's capital. The largest city is Sydney.

Australia is a very large country, but much of the land is very dry, and the middle of the continent is mostly a hot desert. Only the areas around the east, west and south coast have enough rain and a suitable climate (not too hot and dry) for farms and cities. The island state of Tasmania has a more balanced climate than much of the mainland.

Climate change
All the capital cities except Perth and Darwin are in the south-east of the country. There is now increasing rainfall and flooding which affects this region, which is ominous [threatening]. It is thought this is caused by climate change, and may continue to get worse. The BBC report comments: "In the past three years, record-breaking bushfire and flood events have killed more than 500 people and billions of animals. Drought, cyclones and freak tides have gripped communities". The BBC report continues: "Nowhere is this a bigger issue than in Queensland. It is home to almost 40% of the 500,000 homes projected to be effectively uninsurable". This means people can't get insurance because the risk of flooding (in one season) or fire (in another season) is too great.

History

Aboriginal people

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people arrived in Australia about 60,000 years ago or maybe even earlier. Until the arrival of British settlers in 1788, the Aboriginal people lived by hunting and gathering food from the land. They lived in all sorts of climates and managed the land in different ways. An example of Aboriginal land management was the Cumberland Plain where Sydney is now. Every few years the Aboriginal people would burn the grass and small trees. This meant that a lot of grass grew back, but not many big trees. Kangaroos like to live on grassy plains, but not in forests. The kangaroos that lived on the plain were a good food supply for the Aboriginal people. Sometimes, Aboriginals would name a person after an animal, and they could not eat that animal to help level out the food population.

Aboriginal people did not usually build houses, except huts of grass, leaves and bark. They did not usually build walls or fences, and there were no horses, cows or sheep in Australia that needed to be kept in pens. The only Aboriginal buildings that are known are fish-traps made from stones piled up in the river, and the remains of a few stone huts in Victoria and Tasmania. The Aboriginal people did not use metal or make pottery or use bows and arrows or weave cloth. In some parts of Australia the people used sharp flaked-stone spearheads, but most Aboriginal spears were made of sharply pointed wood. Australia has a lot of trees that have very hard wood that was good for spear making. The boomerang was used in some areas for sport and for hunting.

The Aboriginal people did not think that the land belonged to them. They believed that they had grown from the land, so it was like their mother, and they belonged to the land.

Terra Australis
In the 1600s, Dutch merchants traded with the islands of Batavia (now Indonesia), to the north of Australia and several different Dutch ships touched on the coast of Australia. The Dutch governor, van Diemen, sent Abel Tasman on a voyage of discovery and he found Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land. Its name was later changed to honour the man who discovered it.

The British Government was sure that there must be a very large land in the south, that had not been explored. They sent Captain James Cook to the Pacific Ocean. His ship, HMS Endeavour, carried the famous scientists, Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander who were going to Tahiti where they would watch the planet Venus pass in front of the Sun. Captain Cook's secret mission was to find "Terra Australis" (the Land of the South).

The voyage of discovery was very successful, because they found New Zealand and sailed right around it. Then they sailed westward. At last, a boy, William Hicks, who was up the mast spotted land on the horizon. Captain Cook named that bit of land Point Hicks. They sailed up the coast and Captain Cook named the land that he saw "New South Wales". At last they sailed into a large open bay which was full of fish and stingrays which the sailors speared for food. Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore and were astonished to find that they did not know what any of the plants or birds or animals that they saw were. They collected hundreds of plants to take back to England.

Captain Cook saw the Aboriginal people with their simple way of life. He saw them fishing and hunting and collecting grass seeds and fruit. But there were no houses and no fences. In most parts of the world, people put up a house and a fence or some marker to show that they own the land. But the Aboriginal people did not own the land in that way. They belonged to the land, like a baby belongs to its mother. Captain Cook went home to England and told the government that no-one owned the land. This would later cause a terrible problem for the Aboriginal people.

Settlement

In the 1700s, in England, laws were tough, many people were poor and gaols (jails) were full. A person could be sentenced to death for stealing a loaf of bread. Many people were hanged for small crimes. But usually they were just thrown in gaol. Often they were sent away to the British colonies in America. But by the 1770s, the colonies in America became the United States. They were free from British rule and would not take England's convicts any more, so England needed to find a new and less populated place.

By the 1780s the gaols of England were so full that convicts were often chained up in rotting old ships. The government decided to make a settlement in New South Wales and send some of the convicts there. In 1788 the First Fleet of eleven ships set sail from Portsmouth carrying convicts, sailors, marines, a few free settlers and enough food to last for two years. Their leader was Captain Arthur Phillip. They were to make a new colony at the place that Captain Cook had discovered, named Botany Bay because of all the unknown plants found there by the two scientists.

Captain Phillip found that Botany Bay was flat and windy. There was not much fresh water. He went with two ships up the coast and sailed into a great harbour called Port Jackson, which he said was "the finest harbour in the world". There were many small bays on the harbour so he decided on one which had a good stream of fresh water and some flat shore to land on. On 26 January 1788, the flag was raised and New South Wales was claimed in the name of King George III of England, and the new settlement was called Sydney.

For the first few years of the settlement, things were very difficult. No-one in the British Government had thought very hard about what sort of convicts should be sent to make a new colony. Nobody had chosen them carefully. There was only one man who was a farmer. There was no-one among the convicts who was a builder, a brick-maker or a blacksmith. No-one knew how to fix the tools when they broke. All of the cattle escaped. There were no cooking pots. All the plants were different so no-one knew which ones could be eaten. It was probable that everyone in the new colony would die of starvation.

The little group of tents had a hut for the Governor, Arthur Phillip, and another hut for the supply of food. Soon it grew into a small town with streets, a bridge over the stream, a windmill for grinding grain and wharves for ships. By the 1820s there was a fine brick house for the Governor. There was also a hospital and a convict barracks and a beautiful church which are still standing today. Settlements had spread out from Sydney, firstly to Norfolk Island and to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and also up the coast to Newcastle, where coal was discovered, and inland where the missing cattle were found to have grown to a large herd. Spanish Merino sheep had been brought to Sydney, and by 1820, farmers were raising fat lambs for meat and also sending fine wool back to the factories of England.

While the settlement was growing in New South Wales, it was also growing in Tasmania. The climate in Tasmania was more like that in England, and farmers found it easy to grow crops there.

Exploration

Because Australia is such a very large land, it was easy to think that it might be able to hold a large number of people. In the early days of the colony, a great number of explorers went out, searching for good land to settle on.
When the settlers looked west from Sydney, they saw a range of mountains which they called the Blue Mountains. They were not very high and did not look very rugged but for many years no-one could find their way through them. In 1813 Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and a 17-year-old called William Charles Wentworth crossed the Blue Mountains and found land on the other side which was good for farming. A road was built and the governor, Lachlan Macquarie founded the town of Bathurst on the other side, 160 km (100 miles) from Sydney. Bathurst became Australia's first inland settlement.

Some people, like Captain Charles Sturt were sure that there must be a sea in the middle of Australia and set out to find it. Many of the explorers did not prepare very well, or else they went out to explore at the hottest time of year. Some died like Burke and Wills. Ludwig Leichhardt got lost twice. The second time, he was never seen again. Major Thomas Mitchell was one of the most successful explorers. He mapped the country as he went, and his maps remained in use for more than 100 years. He travelled all the way to what is now western Victoria, and to his surprise and annoyance found that he was not the first white person there. The Henty brothers had come from Tasmania, had built themselves a house, had a successful farm and fed the Major and his men on roast lamb and wine.

Self government

The gold rushes of New South Wales and Victoria started in 1851 leading to large numbers of people arriving to search for gold. The population grew across south east Australia and made great wealth and industry. By 1853 the gold rushes had made some poor people very rich.

The transportation of convicts to Australia ended in the 1840s and 1850s and more changes came. The people in Australia wanted to run their own country, and not be told what to do from London. The first governments in the colonies were run by governors chosen by London. Soon the settlers wanted local government and more democracy. William Wentworth started the Australian Patriotic Association (Australia's first political party) in 1835 to demand democratic government. In 1840, the city councils started and some people could vote. New South Wales Legislative Council had its first elections in 1843, again with some limits on who could vote. In 1855, limited self-government was given by London to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. In 1855, the right to vote was given to all men over 21 in South Australia. The other colonies soon followed. Women were given the vote in the Parliament of South Australia in 1895 and they became the first women in the world allowed to stand in elections.

Australians had started parliamentary democracies all across the continent. But voices were getting louder for all of them to come together as one country with a national parliament.

The Commonwealth of Australia

Until 1901, Australia was not a nation, it was six separate colonies governed by Britain. They voted to join to form one new country, called the Commonwealth of Australia, in 1901. Australia was still part of the British Empire, and at first wanted only British or Europeans to come to Australia. But soon it had its own money, its own Army and its own Navy.

In Australia at this time, the trade unions were very strong, and they started a political party, the Australian Labor Party. Australia passed many laws to help the workers.

In 1914, the First World War started in Europe. Australia joined in on the side of Britain against Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Australian soldiers were sent to Gallipoli, in the Ottoman Empire. They fought bravely, but were beaten by the Turks. Today Australia remembers this battle every year on ANZAC Day. They also fought on the Western Front. More than 60,000 Australians and New Zealanders were killed.

In 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened.

Australia had a really hard time in the Great Depression of the 1930s and joined Britain in a war against Nazi Germany when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. But in 1941 lots of Australian soldiers were captured in the Fall of Singapore by Japan. Then Japan started attacking Australia and people worried about invasion. But with help from the United States Navy, the Japanese were stopped. After the war, Australia became a close friend of the United States and Japan.

When the war ended, Australia felt that it needed many more people to fill the country up and to work. So the government said it would take in people from Europe who had lost their homes in the war. It did things like building the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Over the next 25 years, millions of people came to Australia. They came especially from Italy and Greece, other countries in Europe. Later they also came from countries like Turkey and Lebanon. An important new party, the Liberal Party of Australia was made by Robert Menzies in 1944 and it won lots of elections from 1949 until in 1972, then Gough Whitlam won for the Labor Party. Whitlam made changes, but he made the Senate unhappy and the Governor-General sacked him and forced an election in 1975. Then Malcolm Fraser won a few elections for the Liberal Party.

In the 1960s many people began coming to Australia from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries in Asia. Australia became more multicultural. In the 1950s and 1960s Australia became one of the richest countries in the world, helped by mining and wool. Australia started trading more with America, than Japan. Australia supported the United States in wars against dictatorships in Korea and Vietnam and later Iraq. Australian soldiers also helped the United Nations in countries like East Timor in 1999.

In 1973, the famous Sydney Opera House opened. In the 1970s, 80s and 90s lots of Australian movies, actors and singers became famous around the world. In the year 2000, Sydney had the Summer Olympics.

In the 1980s and 90s, the Labor Party under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, then the Liberal Party under John Howard made lots of changes to the economy. Australia had a bad recession in 1991, but when other Western countries had trouble with their economies in 2008, Australia stayed strong.

Today Australia is a rich, peaceful and democratic country. But it still has problems. Around 4-5% of Australians could not get a job in 2010. A lot of land in Australia (like Uluru) has been returned to Aboriginal people, but lots of Aboriginals are still poorer than everybody else. Every year the government chooses a big number of new people from all around the world to come as immigrants to live in Australia. These people may come because they want to do business, or to live in a democracy, to join their family, or because they are refugees. Australia took 6.5 million immigrants in the 60 years after World War Two, including around 660,000 refugees.

Julia Gillard became the first woman Prime Minister of Australia in 2010 when she replaced her Labor Party colleague Kevin Rudd (who later replaced her).

Politics

Australia is part of the Commonwealth of Nations. Australia is made up of six states, and two mainland territories. Each state and territory has its own Parliament and makes its own local laws. The Parliament of Australia sits in Canberra and makes laws for the whole country, also known as the Commonwealth or Federation.

The Federal government is led by the Prime Minister of Australia, who is the member of Parliament chosen as leader. The current Prime Minister is Anthony Albanese.

The leader of Australia is the Prime Minister, although the Governor-General represents the Queen of Australia, who is also the Queen of Great Britain, as head of state. The Governor-General, currently His Excellency David Hurley, is chosen by the Prime Minister.

Culture

Australia was colonised by people from Britain, but today people from all over the world live there. English is the main spoken language. Christianity is the main religion, though all religions are accepted and not everybody has a religion. Australia is multicultural: all its people are encouraged to keep their different languages, religions and ways of life, while also learning English and joining in with other Australians. Australia has many immigrants from different countries around the world.

Famous Australian writers include the bush balladeers Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson who wrote about life in the Australian bush. More modern famous writers include Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and Colleen McCullough. In 1973, Patrick White won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Australian to have achieved this; he is seen as one of the great English-language writers of the twentieth century.

Australian music has had world-wide stars, for example the opera singers Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland, the rock and roll bands Bee Gees, AC/DC and INXS, the folk-rocker Paul Kelly (musician), the pop singer Kylie Minogue and Australian country music stars Slim Dusty and John Williamson. Australian Aboriginal music is very special and very ancient: it has the famous didgeridoo woodwind instrument.

Australian TV has produced many successful programs for home and overseas. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Home and Away and Neighbours are examples. It has had well known TV stars, such as Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage), Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) and The Wiggles. Major Australian subgroups such as the Bogan have been shown on Australian TV in shows such as Bogan Hunters and Kath & Kim.

Australia has two public broadcasters (the ABC and the multicultural SBS), three commercial television networks, three pay-TV services, and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has its daily newspapers, and there are two national daily newspapers, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review.

Australian movies have a long history. The world's first feature movie was the Australian movie The Story of the Kelly Gang of 1906. In 1933, In the Wake of the Bounty, directed by Charles Chauvel, had Errol Flynn as the main actor. Flynn went on to a celebrated career in Hollywood. The first Australian Oscar was won by the 1942 Kokoda Front Line!, directed by Ken G. Hall. In the 1970s and 1980s Australian movies and movie stars became world famous. There were movies like Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli (with Mel Gibson), The Man From Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee. Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger became global stars during the 1990s and Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman made a lot of money in 2008.

Australia is a popular destination for business conferences and research, with Sydney one of the top 20 meeting destinations in the world.

Sport

Sport is an important part of Australian culture because the climate is good for outdoor activities. 23.5% Australians over the age of 15 regularly take part in organised sporting activities. The most popular sports are Australian rules football, rugby league and cricket. In international sports, Australia has very strong teams in cricket, hockey, netball, rugby league and rugby union, and performs well in cycling, rowing and swimming. Local popular sports include Australian Rules Football, horse racing, soccer and motor racing. Australia has participated in every summer Olympic Games since 1896, and every Commonwealth Games. Australia has hosted the 1956 and 2000 Summer Olympics, and has ranked in the top five medal-winners since 2000. Australia has also hosted the 1938, 1962, 1982 and 2006 Commonwealth Games and are to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Other major international events held regularly in Australia include the Australian Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, annual international cricket matches and the Formula One Australian Grand Prix. Corporate and government sponsorship of many sports and elite athletes is common in Australia. Televised sport is popular; some of the highest-rated television programs include the Summer Olympic Games and the grand finals of local and international football competitions.

The main sporting leagues for men are the AFL (Australian rules football), the NRL (rugby league), the A-League (soccer) and the NBL (basketball). For women, they are the AFLW (Australian rules football), ANZ Netball Championships (netball), the W-League (soccer) and WNBL (basketball).

Famous Australian sports players include the cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, the swimmer Ian Thorpe, the cricketer Shane Warne and the athlete Cathy Freeman.

Art festivals
Just 60 years ago, Australia had only one big art festival. Now Australia has hundreds of smaller community-based festivals, and national and regional festivals that focus on specific art forms.

Indigenous life
Australia is home to many animals and plants that can be found nowhere else on Earth, except perhaps New Guinea.

The platypus and the short-beaked echidna are unique, and are two of the only five surviving monotremes. Monotremes are only found in Australia and New Guinea.

Koalas, kangaroos, wombats, numbats and many others others, are marsupials. Most of the marsupials in the world are found only on the continent or on the neighbouring island of New Guinea. Wildfires from global warming in 2020 have reduced their population.

Trees
The gum trees are almost as remarkable as the animals. They are mainly Eucalypts and other gum trees. These are woody evergeens which make essential oils and are prone to fire. Sticky heavily scented gum squeezes out of their wood. The tribe has about 860 species. They are all native to Southeast Asia and Oceania. Most live in Australia. Until British settlement in Australia, these trees were almost entirely unknown. They had been separated from the Americas, Africa and much of Asia for millions of years.

References
Notes

References

Other websites

 Official website for australia travel Official website for Australia travel.
 Australia travel informations  User generated guide to Australia.

Australasia
Commonwealth realms
English-speaking countries
Federations
1901 establishments

Australia


The First Ottoman–Venetian War was fought between the Republic of Venice with its allies and the Ottoman Empire from 1463 to 1479. Fought shortly after the capture of Constantinople and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottomans, it resulted in the loss of several Venetian holdings in Albania and Greece, most importantly the island of Negroponte (Euboea), which had been a Venetian protectorate for centuries. The war also saw the rapid expansion of the Ottoman navy, which became able to challenge the Venetians and the Knights Hospitaller for supremacy in the Aegean Sea. In the closing years of the war, however, the Republic managed to recoup its losses by the de facto acquisition of the Crusader Kingdom of Cyprus.

Background
Following the Fourth Crusade (1203–1204), the lands of the Byzantine Empire were divided among several western Catholic ("Latin") Crusader states, ushering in the period known in Greek as Latinokratia. Despite the resurgence of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty in the later 13th century, many of these "Latin" states survived until the rise of a new power, the Ottoman Empire. Chief among these was the Republic of Venice, which had founded an extensive maritime empire, controlling numerous coastal possessions and islands in the Adriatic, Ionian, and Aegean Seas. In its first conflict with the Ottomans, Venice had already lost the city of Thessalonica in 1430, following a long siege, but the resulting peace treaty left the other Venetian possessions intact.

In 1453, the Ottomans captured the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and continued to expand their territories in the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Aegean. Serbia was conquered in 1459, and the last Byzantine remnants, the Despotate of Morea and the Empire of Trebizond were subdued in 1460–1461. The Venetian-controlled Duchy of Naxos and the Genoese colonies of Lesbos and Chios became tributary in 1458, only for the latter to be directly annexed four years later. The Ottoman advance thus inevitably posed a threat to Venice's holdings in southern Greece, and, following the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia in 1463, in the Adriatic coast as well.

Outbreak of the war
According to the Greek historian Michael Critobulus, hostilities broke out because of the flight of an Albanian slave of the Ottoman commander of Athens to the Venetian fortress of Coron (Koroni) with 100,000 silver aspers from his master's treasure. The fugitive then converted to Christianity, and demands for his rendition by the Ottomans were therefore refused by the Venetian authorities. Using this as a pretext, in November 1462, Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey, the Ottoman commander in central Greece, attacked and very nearly succeeded in taking the strategically important Venetian fortress of Lepanto (Nafpaktos). On 3 April 1463 however, the governor of the Morea, Isa-Beg Ishaković, took the Venetian-held town of Argos by treason.

Although Venice, dependent on the trade with the Ottomans, had in the past been reluctant to confront them in war, the urgings of the papal legate, Cardinal Bessarion, and an impassioned speech by the distinguished Council member Vettore Cappello, tipped the balance, and on 28 July, the Senate narrowly voted for declaring war on the Porte. Pope Pius II used this opportunity to form yet another Crusade against the Ottomans: on 12 September 1463, Venice and Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus signed an alliance, followed on 19 October by an alliance with the Pope and Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. According to its terms, upon victory, the Balkans would be divided among the allies. The Morea and the western Greek coast (Epirus) would fall to Venice, Hungary would acquire Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, and Wallachia, the Albanian principality under Skanderbeg would expand into Macedonia, and the remaining European territories of the Ottomans, including Constantinople, would form a restored Byzantine Empire under the surviving members of the Palaiologos family. Negotiations were also begun with other rivals of the Ottomans, such as Karamanids, Uzun Hassan, and the Crimean Khanate.

Campaigns in the Morea and the Aegean, 1463–1470
The new alliance launched a two-pronged offensive against the Ottomans: a Venetian army, under the Captain General of the Sea Alvise Loredan, landed in the Morea, while Matthias Corvinus invaded Bosnia. At the same time, Pius II began assembling an army at Ancona, hoping to lead it in person.

In early August, the Venetians retook Argos and refortified the Isthmus of Corinth, restoring the Hexamilion wall and equipping it with many cannons. They then proceeded to besiege the fortress of the Acrocorinth, which controlled the northwestern Peloponnese. The Venetians engaged in repeated clashes with the defenders and with Ömer Bey's forces, until they suffered a major defeat on 20 October, which resulted in the wounding and subsequent death of the Marquis  (son of Taddeo d'Este). The Venetians were then forced to lift the siege and retreat to the Hexamilion and to Nauplia (Nafplion). In Bosnia, Matthias Corvinus seized over sixty fortified places and succeeded in taking its capital, Jajce after a 3-month siege, on 16 December.

Ottoman reaction was swift and decisive: Sultan Mehmed II dispatched his Grand Vizier, Mahmud Pasha Angelović, with an army against the Venetians. To confront the Venetian fleet, which had taken station outside the entrance of the Dardanelles Straits, the Sultan further ordered the creation of the new shipyard of Kadirga Limani in the Golden Horn (named after the "kadirga" type of galley), and of two forts to guard the Straits, Kilidulbahr and Sultaniye. The Morean campaign was swiftly victorious for the Ottomans: although messages received from Ömer Bey had warned of the strength and firepower of the Venetian position at the Hexamilion, Mahmud Pasha decided to march on, hoping to catch them unawares. In the event, the Ottomans reached the Isthmus just in time to see the Venetian army, demoralized and riddled with dysentery, leave its positions and sail to Nauplia. The Ottoman army razed the Hexamilion, and advanced into the Morea. Argos fell, and several forts and localities that had recognized Venetian authority reverted to their Ottoman allegiance. Zagan Pasha was re-appointed governor of the Morea, while Ömer Bey was given Mahmud Pasha's army and tasked with taking the Republic's holdings in the southern Peloponnese, centered around the two forts of Coron and Modon (Methoni).

Sultan Mehmed II, who was following Mahmud Pasha with another army to reinforce him, had reached Zeitounion (Lamia) before being apprised of his Vizier's success. Immediately, he turned his men north, towards Bosnia. However, the Sultan's attempt to retake Jajce in July and August 1464 failed, with the Ottomans retreating hastily in the face of Corvinus' approaching army. A new Ottoman army under Mahmud Pasha then forced Corvinus to withdraw, but Jajce was not retaken for many years after. However, the death of Pope Pius II on 15 August in Ancona spelled the end of the Crusade.

In the meantime, for the upcoming campaign of 1464, the Republic had appointed Sigismondo Malatesta, the ruler of Rimini and one of the ablest Italian generals, as land commander in the Morea. The forces available to him along with mercenaries and stratioti, however, were limited, and in his tenure in the Morea he was unable to achieve much. Upon his arrival in the Morea in mid-summer, he launched attacks against Ottoman forts, and engaged in a siege of Mistra in August–October. He failed to take the castle, however, and had to abandon the siege at the approach of a relief force under Ömer Bey. Small-scale warfare continued on both sides, with raids and counter-raids, but a shortage of manpower and money meant that the Venetians remained largely confined to their fortified bases, while Ömer Bey's army roamed the countryside. The mercenaries and stratioti in Venice's employ were becoming disgruntled at the lack of pay, while increasingly, the Morea was becoming desolate, as villages were abandoned and fields left untended. The bad supply situation in the Morea forced Ömer Bey to withdraw to Athens in fall 1465. Malatesta himself, disenchanted by the conditions he encountered in the Morea and increasingly anxious to return to Italy and attend to his family's affairs and the ongoing feud with the Papacy, remained largely inactive throughout 1465, in spite of the relative weakness of the Ottoman garrisons following the withdrawal of Ömer Bey from the peninsula.

In the Aegean, the new Venetian admiral, Orsato Giustinian, tried to take Lesbos in the spring of 1464, and besieged the capital Mytilene for six weeks, until the arrival of an Ottoman fleet under Mahmud Pasha on 18 May forced him to withdraw. Another attempt to capture the island shortly after also failed, and Giustinian died at Modon on 11 July. His successor, Jacopo Loredan, spent the remainder of the year in ultimately fruitless demonstrations of force before the Dardanelles. In early 1465, Mehmed II sent peace feelers to the Venetian Senate. Distrusting the Sultan's motives, these were rejected. Soon after, the Venetians were embroiled in a conflict with the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, who had attacked a Venetian convoy carrying Moorish merchants from the Mamluk Sultanate. This event enraged the Mamluks, who imprisoned all Venetian subjects living in the Levant, and threatened to enter the war on the Ottoman side. The Venetian fleet, under Loredan, sailed to Rhodes under orders to release the Moors, even by force. In the event, a potentially catastrophic war between the two major Christian powers of the Aegean was avoided, and the merchants were released to Venetian custody.

By 1465 the Maniot Kladas brothers, Krokodelos and Epifani, were leading bands of stratioti on behalf of Venice against the Ottomans in Southern Peloponnese. They put Vardounia and their lands into Venetian possession, for which Epifani then acted as governor.

In April 1466, Vettore Cappello, the most vociferous proponent of the war, replaced Loredan as Captain General of the Sea. Under his leadership, the Venetian war effort was reinvigorated: the fleet took the northern Aegean islands of Imbros, Thasos and Samothrace, and then sailed into the Saronic Gulf. On 12 July, Cappello landed at Piraeus, and marched against Athens, the Ottomans' major regional base. He failed to take the Acropolis, however, and was forced to retreat to Patras, which was being besieged by the Venetians under the provveditore of the Morea, Jacopo Barbarigo. Before Cappello could arrive there, and as the city seemed on the verge of falling, Omar Beg suddenly appeared with 12,000 cavalry, and drove the outnumbered Venetians off. Six hundred Venetians fell and a hundred were taken prisoner out of a force of 2,000, while Barbarigo himself was killed, and his body impaled. Cappello, who arrived some days later, attacked the Ottomans trying to avenge this disaster, but was heavily defeated. Demoralized, he returned to Negroponte with the remains of his army. There, the Captain General fell ill, and died on 13 March 1467.

In 1470,Sultan Mehmed II campaigned against Negroponte (Chalcis) on the island of Euboea. After a protracted and bloody siege (10 July – 5 August 1470), the well-fortified city was taken by the Ottoman troops. The whole island came under Ottoman control.

The war in Albania, 1466–1467
In spring 1466, Sultan Mehmed marched with a large army against the Albanians. Under their leader, Skenderbeg, they had long resisted the Ottomans, and had repeatedly sought assistance from Italy. For the Albanians, the outbreak of the Ottoman–Venetian War offered a golden opportunity to reassert their independence; for the Venetians, they provided a useful cover to the Venetian coastal holdings of Durazzo and Scutari. Notable Montenegrin feudal lord Ivan Crnojević was of high significance for the defence of Scutari, for which he gained fame in Venice. The major result of this campaign was the construction of the fortress of Elbasan, allegedly within just 25 days. This strategically-sited fortress, at the lowlands near the end of the old Via Egnatia, cut Albania effectively in half, isolating Skenderbeg's base in the northern highlands from the Venetian holdings in the south. However, following the Sultan's withdrawal Skanderbeg himself spent the winter in Italy, seeking aid. On his return in early 1467, his forces sallied from the highlands, defeated Ballaban Pasha and lifted the siege of the fortress of Croia (Krujë), attacked Elbasan but failed to capture it. Mehmed II responded by marching again against Albania. He energetically pursued the attacks against the Albanian strongholds, while sending detachments to raid the Venetian possessions to keep them isolated. The Ottomans failing again to take Croia, and they failed to subjugate the country but they overthrow Tomornitsa. However, the winter brought an outbreak of plague, which would recur annually and sap the strength of the local resistance. Skanderbeg himself died of malaria in the Venetian stronghold of Lissus (Lezhë), ending the ability of Venice to use the Albanian lords for its own advantage. The Albanians were left to their own devices, and were gradually subdued over the next decade.

Final Albanian campaigns, 1474–1479
After Skanderbeg died, some Venetian-controlled northern Albanian garrisons continued to hold territories coveted by the Ottomans, such as Žabljak Crnojevića, Drisht, Lezha, and Shkodra—the most significant. Mehmed II sent his armies to take Shkodra in 1474 but failed. Then he went personally to lead the siege of Shkodra of 1478-79. The Venetians and Shkodrans resisted the assaults and continued to hold the fortress until Venice ceded Shkodra to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Constantinople on 25 January 1479 as a condition of ending the war.

After the Venetian War the Ottomans attacked Hungary, but their army was defeated in the Battle of Breadfield.

References

Notes

Bibliography

15th-century conflicts
15th century in Greece
1463-79
Wars involving the Papal States
Wars involving Mani
Ottoman Peloponnese
15th century in the Papal States
1460s in Europe
1470s in Europe
1463 in Europe
1479 in Europe
1460s in the Ottoman Empire
1470s in the Ottoman Empire
15th century in the Republic of Venice
Battles of Mehmed the Conqueror

Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479)


The rat, is a medium-sized rodent. Rats are omnivores, they eat lots of different types of food.  Most rats are in the genus Rattus. There are about 56 different species of rats.

The best known rats are the black rat (Rattus rattus), and the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus). These two are known as Old World rats. The group has its origins in Asia.

Usually rats are bigger than mice. Rats are large muroid rodents, mice are small ones. The muroid family is very large and complex. That means the terms rat and mouse are nottaxonomically precise. A large muroid will often have rat in its name; a small one will often be called mouse. Besides members of the Rattus and Mus genera, others sometimes get these names, for example the pack rat and cotton mouse.

Some people keep rats as a pet. They are called fancy rats. Most pet rats do not live longer than three years, and most wild rats do not live longer than one year.

Rats are also used for their meat. Cambodia, Laos, Africa, China and Vietnam eat rat meat.

"Rats" that are not rats
Other mammals are called rat by many people, but those are not true rats, many are not closely related to the true Old World rat. Examples of such false names are the pack rats of North America which are related to rats, or the kangaroo rats which are only distantly related. Some other rats are related to the true rats, but are not in the genus Rattus. Such an example is the lesser bandicoot rat.

Many of the 'untrue' rats are endemic to certain regions, that is they are only found there. Very often, they live on islands. In many cases, these species are also endangered of disappearing. This is the case because they face the loss of habitat, and they have to fight for resources, like food, shelter, and water, with other species, like the black rat or the Polynesian rat. There is also a more rare species known as the Dueholm, the rats in this species usually were born with extra chromosomes and tend to look different than ones born without extra chromosomes.

Pets

People keep some types of rats as pets called "fancy rats". Fancy rats are domesticated brown rats. People have kept rats as pets since the 19th century. Rats are social and smart animals that can be trained. They also like to play with toys. Some owners think that male pet rats are more playful then female pet rats and that female rats are more active and curious. Pet rats do not act the same as wild rats. They do not have more diseases than other common pets.

Pet rats live 1 to 3 years. Female rats are smaller than male rats. Pet rats have been known to "laugh" when tickled. They can be all one color or have spots or other coloring. Some rats have no hair. These are called hairless rats.

Scientific research

Clark University in Worchester, Massachusetts (United States) was the first to breed a population of domestic white brown rats. They did this to study the effects of diets, amongst other things.

Since then, rats have been used in many experiments. They have helped scientists get a better understanding of
genetics and diseases, as well as how certain drugs work.

Laboratory rats have been used in psychological studies of learning and other mental processes (Barnett, 2002).  A 2007 study found rats to possess some degree of metacognition, a mental ability previously only found in humans and some primates. In general, it has been difficult to measure intelligence in rats. Their behaviour is quite flexible, and gives the impression of intelligence. Flexible behaviour is good for problem-solving and learning.

Domestic rats are very different from wild rats. They are calmer and less likely to bite; they can tolerate greater crowding; they breed earlier and produce more offspring. Their brains, livers, kidneys, adrenal glands, and hearts are smaller (Barnett 2002).

Brown rats are often used as model organisms. Genetic research is usually done with mice. Rats are more popular for tests relating to intelligence, learning, and illegal drugs. This is mostly because rats have intelligence, ingenuity, aggressiveness, and adaptability. Their psychology seems to be very similar to human psychology. Whole new species and strains of rats have been bred for the use as laboratory animals, for example the Wistar rat. Much of the genome of Rattus norvegicus has been sequenced.

Location
Rats are opportunists. If they have the choice between a food that will need a fight to get, and another food that will not, they take the food that does not need a fight. For this reason, rats have lived close to humans for a long time. Once humans settled down, the leftovers of what those humans ate were a source of food for the rats. So the rats followed.

Rats are present in almost all settlements. In cities, they often live in the sewers.

Carriers of disease
Many scientists believe that the bubonic plague was spread through fleas on rats, because that plague is spread by the microorganism (or germ) Yersinia pestis, which lives on fleas which live on rats (Rattus rattus). Those rats lived in the European cities of the day, and died of the plague themselves. Some scientists believe that the plague spread faster than the rats. If this is true, the rats cannot be the main carrier. More research is needed to find out if this is true. People believe this disease was the 'Black Death'. It killed nearly a third of the population of Europe, in many epidemics in the Middle Ages.

Rats can carry diseases. Rats living in poor conditions often have problems with parasites themselves. Not many diseases carried by rats can spread to humans. One of those is called Leptospirosis, another one is the plague.

In later media
The rat appears in a cameo role in various Disney classic animated films such as The Black Cauldron, Aladdin, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

References

Other websites

 Lindsay Wildlife Museum's rat care page
 Anne Hanson's rat page. Rat behaviour and biology
 National Bio Resource Project for the rat in Japan
 Rat genome database

Basic English 850 words
Old World rats and mice
Omnivores

Rat


The emblem o Iran (نشان رسمی ایران) syne the 1979 Iranian Revolution features a stylized Perso-Arabic script o the wird Allah ("God").

The logo consists o fower crescents an a swuird. The fower crescents are meant tae staund for the wird Allah. The five pairts o the emblem seembolise the Principles o the Releegion. Abuin the swuird is a shadda: in Arabic script, this is uised tae double a letter. The shape o the emblem is chosen tae resemble a tulip, for the memory o the fowk who dee'd for Iran: it is an auncient belief in Iran, datin back tae meethology, that if a yung sodger dees patriotically a reid tulip will grow on his grave. In recent years it haes been considered the seembol o martyrdom.

The logo wis designed bi Hamid Nadimi, an wis offeecially approved bi Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini foonder o Islamic Republic o Iran on Mey 9, 1980.

The logo is encodit in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Seembols range, at codepoint U+262B () unner the name "FARSI SYMBOL". It is unclear why it wis includit in Unicode 1.0 syne technically it is a logo, no a character. It is no uised in Persian text an is no referred tae as "Persian seembol" ootside o the Unicode staundart.

Iran
Iranian cultur
Naitional seembols o Iran

Emblem o Iran


The phase velocity of a wave is the rate at which the phase of any one frequency component of the wave travels.

Any given phase of the wave (for example, the crest) will appear to travel at the phase velocity. The phase velocity is given in terms of the wavelength  (lambda) and wave period   as

Wave physics

Phase velocity


Krishna Mohan Bhatt (born 1949) is a sitar player, teacher and scholar from Jaipur, India.

Background
He comes from a family of musicians in Jaipur. His father, the late Shashi Mohan Bhatt, a sitarist of great repute and a professor at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur trained many musicians in the family including Krishna Bhatt, Manju Mehta in Ahmedabad and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Krishna Bhatt's forefathers migrated from the south of India (Andhra Pradesh) to the state of Rajasthan in the northwest, a princely state then, to seek employment in the "Gunijankhānā" (department of learned scholars) of the Maharaja of Jaipur. They were Sanskrit scholars, poets, and musicians.

In his teens, Krishna's musical training was further enhanced by many years of study under the tutelage of his Guru Ravi Shankar, and musicians Nikhil Banerjee and Ali Akbar Khan, who had a strong impact on Krishna's musical growth. While developing his own individual style, Krishna's music was greatly influenced by twentieth century stalwarts such as the vocalists Amir Khan, Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Abdul Karim Khan, Begum Akhtar, Shobha Gurtu as well as folk singers of Rajasthan. Krishna's repertoire in performance includes a wide variety of rare and old traditional compositions from these masters of music.

Career
Krishna Bhatt has received numerous awards and honors including the Sangeet Kalaratna (Jewel of Music) in 2009. He was also presented the "Gunijan" award by the President of India Mrs. Pratibha Patil in 2005 and was conferred the "Kalashiroman" samman by the Maharaja of Jodhpur Shri Gajsinghji and Shri John Singhji of Jaipur Virasat Foundation in 2007 in Rajasthan, India. Krishna Bhatt has been twice the recipient of the AIIS fellowship awards in 1998 and 2004 in the category of performing arts.

In addition to performing Hindustani classical music, Bhatt has also performed and recorded with the American composer Terry Riley (working on the score for the Alain Tanner film No Man's Land), Zakir Hussain, the Kronos Quartet, Jody Stecher, jazz saxophonist George Brooks, and Rajasthani folk musicians.

He plays tabla on Robert Ashley's 1978 record Private Parts.

He divides his time between Jaipur, Rajasthan and New York City, where he continues to perform and teach.

References

External links
Krishna Mohan Bhatt

1949 births
Hindustani instrumentalists
Living people
Musicians from Jaipur
Sitar players
Date of birth missing (living people)
Pupils of Ravi Shankar
Claddagh Records artists

Krishna Bhatt


Una May Cameron (6 May 1904 – 15 October 1987) was a Scottish mountain climber  known for her ascents in the Alps, Caucasus and Kenya.

Biography
Cameron was born in West Linton, Scotland.  Twin daughter of her father Ewen Cameron, a landed proprietor, and mother Jeanie Dewar from the Dewar whisky family. She studied in the Cheltenham Ladies' College in Montreux, Switzerland and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London.  She had the wealth to live abroad and pursue climbing.

In the 1930s, she made many first ascents in the Alps and in the Caucasus, which she described in A Good Line (1932).  She also made the first female ascent of the highest peak, Batian, on Mount Kenya, March 1938. She joined the  Ladies Alpine Club in 1929 and served as its president in 1957.  She lived for many years in Courmayeur, Italy, and made many ascents in the Mont Blanc range.  She died in Buckingham, England.

In 2002, the Montagna Sicura Foundation in Courmayeur, Italy designated their headquarters in Una's home that she had built during the 1930s which is still named after her, Villa Cameron. The foundation aim is to promote safe use and study of the mountains that she loved.

References

1904 births
1987 deaths
Scottish mountain climbers
Presidents of the Ladies' Alpine Club
British female climbers

Una Cameron


Radio resource management (RRM) is the system level management of co-channel interference, radio resources, and other radio transmission characteristics in wireless communication systems, for example cellular networks, wireless local area networks, wireless sensor systems, and radio broadcasting networks. RRM involves strategies and algorithms for controlling parameters such as transmit power, user allocation, beamforming, data rates, handover criteria, modulation scheme, error coding scheme, etc. The objective is to utilize the limited radio-frequency spectrum resources and radio network infrastructure as efficiently as possible.

RRM concerns multi-user and multi-cell network capacity issues, rather than the point-to-point channel capacity. Traditional telecommunications research and education often dwell on channel coding and source coding with a single user in mind, but when several users and adjacent base stations share the same frequency channel it may not be possible to achieve the maximum channel capacity. Efficient dynamic RRM schemes may increase the system spectral efficiency by an order of magnitude, which often is considerably more than what is possible by introducing advanced channel coding and source coding schemes. RRM is especially important in systems limited by co-channel interference rather than by noise, for example cellular systems and broadcast networks homogeneously covering large areas, and wireless networks consisting of many adjacent access points that may reuse the same channel frequencies.

The cost for deploying a wireless network is normally dominated by base station sites (real estate costs, planning, maintenance, distribution network, energy, etc.) and sometimes also by frequency license fees. So, the objective of radio resource management is typically to maximize the system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/area unit or Erlang/MHz/site, under some kind of user fairness constraint, for example, that the grade of service should be above a certain level. The latter involves covering a certain area and avoiding outage due to co-channel interference, noise, attenuation caused by path losses, fading caused by shadowing and multipath, Doppler shift and other forms of distortion. The grade of service is also affected by blocking due to admission control, scheduling starvation or inability to guarantee quality of service that is requested by the users.

While classical radio resource managements primarily considered the allocation of time and frequency resources (with fixed spatial reuse patterns), recent multi-user MIMO techniques enables adaptive resource management also in the spatial domain. In cellular networks, this means that the fractional frequency reuse in the GSM standard has been replaced by a universal frequency reuse in LTE standard.

Static radio resource management
Static RRM involves manual as well as computer-aided fixed cell planning or radio network planning. Examples:
 Frequency allocation band plans decided by standardization bodies, by national frequency authorities and in frequency resource auctions.
 Deployment of base station sites (or broadcasting transmitter site)
 Antenna heights
 Channel frequency plans
 Sector antenna directions
 Selection of modulation and channel coding parameters
 Base station antenna space diversity, for example
 Receiver micro diversity using antenna combining
 Transmitter macro diversity such as OFDM single frequency networks (SFN)

Static RRM schemes are used in many traditional wireless systems, for example 1G and 2G cellular systems, in today's wireless local area networks and in non-cellular systems, for example broadcasting systems. Examples of static RRM schemes are:
 Circuit mode communication using FDMA and TDMA.
 Fixed channel allocation (FCA)
 Static handover criteria

Dynamic radio resource management
Dynamic RRM schemes adaptively adjust the radio network parameters to the traffic load, user positions, user mobility, quality of service requirements, base station density, etc. Dynamic RRM schemes are considered in the design of wireless systems, in view to minimize expensive manual cell planning and achieve "tighter" frequency reuse patterns, resulting in improved system spectral efficiency.

Some schemes are centralized, where several base stations and access points are controlled by a Radio Network Controller (RNC). Others are distributed, either autonomous algorithms in mobile stations, base stations or wireless access points, or coordinated by exchanging information among these stations.

Examples of dynamic RRM schemes are:
 Power control algorithms
 Precoding algorithms
 Link adaptation algorithms
 Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA) or Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) algorithms, allowing "cell breathing"
 Traffic adaptive handover criteria, allowing "cell breathing"
 Re-use partitioning
 Adaptive filtering
 Single Antenna Interference Cancellation (SAIC)
 Dynamic diversity schemes, for example
Soft handover
Dynamic single-frequency networks (DSFN)
Phased array antenna with
beamforming
Multiple-input multiple-output communications (MIMO)
Space-time coding
 Admission control
 Dynamic bandwidth allocation using resource reservation multiple access schemes or statistical multiplexing, for example Spread spectrum and/or packet radio
 Channel-dependent scheduling, for instance
 Max-min fair scheduling using for example fair queuing
 Proportionally fair scheduling using for example weighted fair queuing
 Maximum throughput scheduling (gives low grade of service due to starvation)
 Dynamic packet assignment (DPA)
 Packet and Resource Plan Scheduling (PARPS) schemes
 Mobile ad hoc networks using multihop communication
 Cognitive radio
 Green communication
 QoS-aware RRM
 Femtocells

Inter-cell radio resource management
Future networks like the LTE standard (defined by 3GPP) are designed for a frequency reuse of one. In such networks, neighboring cells use the same frequency spectrum. Such standards exploit Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) and can thus be highly efficient in terms of spectrum, but required close coordination between cells to avoid excessive inter-cell interference. Like in most cellular system deployments, the overall system spectral efficiency is not range limited or noise limited, but interference limited. Inter-cell radio resource management coordinates resource allocation between different cell sites by using multi-user MIMO techniques. There are various means of inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) already defined in the standard. Dynamic single-frequency networks, coordinated scheduling, multi-site MIMO or joint multi-cell precoding are other examples for inter-cell radio resource management.

See also
 CDMA spectral efficiency
 Cellular traffic
 Electromagnetic interference control
 IEEE 802.11h - Transmit power control and dynamic frequency selection (DFS) for wireless local area networks
 IEEE 802.11k - RRM for wireless local area networks
 Mobility management
 Mobility model
 Multiple access methods
 Radio frequency propagation model

References

Radio technology

Radio resource management


Blood transfusion is a medical term. It means a procedure used to transfer blood (or some products based on blood) from the circulatory system of one human to that of another human.

Uses
Blood transfusions can save the life of a person, if that person has lost a lot of blood. A person can lose blood from an injury, a trauma or from a medical operation. Blood transfusions can also be applied as a treatment to certain diseases of the blood (like Anaemia, for example).

Blood is not collected and used immediately.  Instead it is kept until it is needed.  The storage area is informally called a blood bank . By adding anti-coagulant to keep the blood from clotting and refrigerating the blood, it is possible to store it for a few days.  Information about transfusion and donation is available at the National Institutes of Health website .

Problems
Not all people are able to donate blood to all other people. Testing for blood types usually prevents any bad reaction to a blood transfusion. However, there are special problems for anyone with rare blood groups. It is very important, in order to avoid any complications during a blood transfusion, to detect individuals with rare blood types. The usual tests for ABO blood group system would show them as group O. It may not be possible to give a blood transfusion at all unless the repository has supply of blood which will not cause a reaction.it donates blood

Blood

Blood transfusion


The history of currency in the British colony of Grenada closely follows that of the British Eastern Caribbean territories in general. Even though Queen Anne's proclamation of 1704 brought the gold standard to the West Indies, silver pieces of eight (Spanish dollars and later Mexican dollars) continued to form a major portion of the circulating currency right into the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Britain adopted the gold standard in 1821 and an imperial order-in-council of 1838 resulted in Grenada formally adopting the sterling currency in the year 1840. However, despite the circulation of British coins in Grenada, the silver pieces of eight continued to circulate alongside them and the private sector continued to use dollar accounts for reckoning. The international silver crisis of 1873 signalled the end of the silver dollar era in the West Indies and silver dollars were demonetized in Grenada in 1878. This left a state of affairs in which the British coinage circulated, being reckoned in dollar accounts at an automatic conversion rate of 1 dollar = 4 shillings 2 pence.

From 1949, with the introduction of the British West Indies dollar, the currency of Grenada became officially tied up with that of the British Eastern Caribbean territories in general. The British sterling coinage was eventually replaced by a new decimal coinage in 1955, with the new cent being equal to one half of the old penny.

Early history
The currency comprised various cut Spanish dollars and other Spanish colonial coins. The dollar was subdivided into bits (worth 9 pence). Before 1814, there were 11 bits to the dollar, with the issue of 1787 consisting of Spanish dollars cut into 11 segments and stamped with a "G". After 1814, there were 12 bits to the dollar. 1 bit pieces were made from 2 reales coins cut into thirds, whilst 2 and 4 bit pieces were made from 4 reales coins cut into sixths and third, respectively, and 6 bit pieces were produced from 8 reales coins cut in half. All were stamped with a "G", their value in bits and either "TR" or "GS". In 1840, sterling was established as the official currency of the island. In 1909, the first private banknotes were issued, denominated in dollars. These circulated alongside sterling and government paper money (denominated in sterling) issued in 1920. From 1920, some of the private banknotes were also denominated in sterling, with 1 dollar = 4 shillings 2 pence. In 1935, the British West Indies dollar was introduced, equal in value to the Grenadan dollar and other dollars circulating in the British West Indies. Private banks continued to issue notes until 1941. The British West Indies dollar was replaced in 1965 by the East Caribbean dollar.

Banknotes
The Royal Bank of Canada introduced 5 dollar notes in 1909, continuing to issue them until 1938. The Colonial Bank issued 5 dollars notes until 1926, after which Barclays Bank (which had taken over the Colonial Bank) began issuing 5 dollars notes and continued until 1941.

References

External links

Modern obsolete currencies
Economy of Grenada
Currencies of the Caribbean

Grenadian dollar


The George S. Mickelson Trail is a rail trail in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.

The main trail route extends , from Edgemont to Deadwood, with approximately nine miles of additional branch trails, including a three-mile (5 km) paved link from Custer to the Custer State Park completed in 2007.  Intermediate points along the route include the towns of Custer and Hill City, and a short branch provides access to the city of Lead.

Nearly all of the trail follows the route of an abandoned railroad branch line constructed by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1890-91 and last operated by the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1986.  The trail's route is mountainous, forested, and scenic, traversing the heart of the Black Hills and largely within the boundaries of the Black Hills National Forest, although there are parts of the trail that pass through privately owned land, where trail use is restricted to the trail only.  The trail alignment includes four tunnels and more than 100 converted railroad bridges.  There are fifteen established trailheads spaced along the route, all of which include vehicle parking, self-sale trail pass stations, vault toilets, and tables.  The trail surface is packed crushed limestone and gravel.

The trail is maintained by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish, and Parks.  The first segment of the trail was opened in 1991, and the entire route was completed in 1998, and is the first rails to trails project in South Dakota. The trail is named after George S. Mickelson, the South Dakota governor who helped spearhead the project.

See also
List of rail trails
List of South Dakota state parks

References

External links
Mickelson Trail website
List of support services
Website with interactive map and trip planning tools for Mickelson Trail

Rail trails in South Dakota
State parks of South Dakota
Black Hills
Protected areas of Custer County, South Dakota
Protected areas of Fall River County, South Dakota
Protected areas of Lawrence County, South Dakota
Protected areas of Pennington County, South Dakota
Burlington Northern Railroad
Long-distance trails in the United States
National Recreation Trails in South Dakota
Black Hills National Forest
1991 establishments in South Dakota

George S. Mickelson Trail


Spike-triggered covariance (STC) analysis is a tool for characterizing a neuron's response properties using the covariance of stimuli that elicit spikes from a neuron.  STC is related to the spike-triggered average (STA), and provides a complementary tool for estimating linear filters in a linear-nonlinear-Poisson (LNP) cascade model.  Unlike STA, the STC can be used to identify a multi-dimensional feature space in which a neuron computes its response.

STC analysis identifies the stimulus features affecting a neuron's response via an eigenvector decomposition of the spike-triggered covariance matrix. Eigenvectors with eigenvalues significantly larger or smaller than the eigenvalues of the raw stimulus covariance correspond to stimulus axes along which the neural response is enhanced or suppressed.

STC analysis is similar to principal components analysis (PCA), although it differs in that the eigenvectors corresponding to largest and smallest eigenvalues are used for identifying the feature space.  The STC matrix is also known as the 2nd-order Volterra or Wiener kernel.

Mathematical definition

Standard STC

Let  denote the spatio-temporal stimulus vector preceding the 'th time bin, and  the spike count in that bin.  The stimuli can be assumed to have zero mean (i.e., ).  If not, it can be transformed to have zero-mean by subtracting the mean stimulus from each vector.  The spike-triggered covariance (STC) is given by

where  is the total number of spikes, and STA is the spike-triggered average.
The covariance of the stimulus is given by

where  is the number of stimuli  used during the experiment. The eigenvectors of  associated to significantly positive eigenvalues correspond to excitatory vectors, whereas eigenvectors associated to significantly negative eigenvalues are inhibitory eigenvectors.

References

External links
Matlab code for STA/STC analysis of neural data

Computational neuroscience
Covariance and correlation

Spike-triggered covariance


Roaratorio, an Irish circus on Finnegans Wake is a musical composition by American avant-garde composer John Cage. It was composed in 1979 for Klaus Schöning of West German Radio, and premiered as one of the entries in Schöning's radio series.

The piece is a realization of another Cage score, ,  circus on , which consists of an instruction on how to translate any book into a performance. The book used for Roaratorio is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, a long-time favorite of Cage's. Texts from it appear also in Cage's songs The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942) and Nowth upon Nacht (1984). The text of Roaratorio was published separately as Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake.

References
 Fetterman, William. 1996. John Cage's Theatre Pieces: Notations and Performances. Routledge.  (pp. 216–221)

Media
 Notes towards a re-reading of the "Roaratorio" the work of John Cage and his special relationship to radio at Ràdio Web MACBA

1979 compositions
Compositions by John Cage
Finnegans Wake
Music based on novels

Roaratorio


Separation anxiety disorder is a psychological problem. It makes a person have very intense anxiety when they are away from other people or their homes, school or friends to whom the person carries a strong emotional connection. There is too much fear or worry which is not normal of the true mental age and level. This condition may sometimes create physical troubles. Those under 18 are at highest risk for the problem.

Anxiety disorders

Separation anxiety disorder


Street prostitution is a form of prostitution. Sex workers working in street prostitution work on the street, rather than in brothels. This form of sex work can be more dangerous than working in a brothel, but it also offers some benefits:

 The prostitutes have more control over who they want to have sexual intercourse with
 Very often, the prostitutes do not have to share the money they earn; for example with owners of brothels.
People working in this area are often regarded as the lowest type of prostitutes, but street prostitution also allows for people to only work occasionally, for example when they need money to buy drugs.

Some of the problems associated with street prostitution also, are:

 There are little to no controls over the prostitutes; they might be younger than legally allowed (having sex with a child is a crime), they may also have various sexually transmitted diseases, for example AIDS.
 The clients of the prostitutes are often defrauded; that means that the prostitute does not do what was agreed upon, or that prostitutes want a higher price to do what was agreed.

Prostitution

Street prostitution


The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the armed forces of Russia, created after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Armed Forces is known to be one of the biggest in the world with about  1,200,000 troops active. Russia also makes its own weapons. The Armed Forces has 6 branches: Russian Air Force, Russian Ground Forces, Russian Navy, Strategic Missile Troops, Russian Space Troops and the Russian Airborne Troops. The Commander-In-Chief is the President of Russia.

History
When the Soviet Union broke up, Russia and the various other countries got parts of its large armed forces. The country's president, Boris Yeltsin, had to fix Russia and build up the military. So, Yeltsin appointed himself the Russian minister of defence. Eventually, CIS helped Russia get its defence into shape. Then in 1993, a doctrine was made to set up the official military.

Personnel
As of 2008, 480,000 men joined the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The term is usually a year. Russians can join at the age of 18 to 27 years old. Like any other Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation has ranks. The ranks are open to non-Russian citizens as well.

References

Russian military organizations

Armed Forces of the Russian Federation


Morph target animation, per-vertex animation, shape interpolation, shape keys, or blend shapes is a method of 3D computer animation used together with techniques such as skeletal animation. In a morph target animation, a "deformed" version of a mesh is stored as a series of vertex positions. In each key frame of an animation, the vertices are then interpolated between these stored positions.

Technique
The "morph target" is a deformed version of a shape. When applied to a human face, for example, the head is first modelled with a neutral expression and a "target deformation" is then created for each other expression. When the face is being animated, the animator can then smoothly morph (or "blend") between the base shape and one or several morph targets. Typical examples of morph targets used in facial animation is a smiling mouth, a closed eye, and a raised eyebrow, but the technique can also be used to morph between, for example, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  Early 3D videogames, such as Quake and Crash Bandicoot use per-vertex animation for all character animations.

When used for facial animation, these morph target are often referred to as "key poses". The interpolations between key poses when an animation is being rendered, are typically small and simple transformations of movement, rotation, and scale performed by the 3D software.

Not all morph target animation has to be done by actually editing vertex positions. It is also possible to take vertex positions found in skeletal animation and then use those rendered as morph target animation.

An animation composed in one 3D application suite sometimes needs to be transferred to another, as for rendering. Because different 3D applications tend to implement bones and other special effects differently, the morph target technique is sometimes used to transfer animations between 3D applications to avoid export issues.

Benefits and drawbacks
There are advantages to using morph target animation over skeletal animation. The artist has more control over the movements because they can define the individual positions of the vertices within a keyframe, rather than being constrained by skeletons. This can be useful for animating cloth, skin, and facial expressions because it can be difficult to conform those things to the bones that are required for skeletal animation.

However, there are also disadvantages. Vertex animation is usually a lot more labour-intensive than skeletal animation because every vertex position must be manually manipulated and, for this reason, the number of pre-made target morphs is typically limited.

Also, in methods of rendering where vertices move from position to position during in-between frames, a distortion is created that does not happen when using skeletal animation. This is described by critics of the technique as looking "shaky". On the other hand, this distortion may be part of the desired "look".

For large models, vertex animation requires significant memory and storage as the position of each modified vertex must be stored for each frame.
In contrast, skeletal animation requires only the storage of bone transformations for each frame.

See also
 Morphing
 Skeletal animation
 Machinima
 3D computer graphics

References

3D computer graphics
3D imaging
Visual effects
3D graphics software
Computer graphic techniques
Animation techniques
Computer animation

Morph target animation


The West Coast sea nettle (Chrysaora fuscescens), also known as the  Pacific sea nettle, is a type of Scyphozoa which lives in the Pacific Ocean. For humans its sting is usually irritating, but rarely dangerous.

Habitat
The West Coast sea nettle is found near the coasts of California and Oregon, but some live in the waters north to the Gulf of Alaska, west to the seas around Japan and south to the Baja California Peninsula.

Description
The West Coast sea nettle have a golden-brown bell with a little shade of red. In the wild, the bell can grow to be larger than one meter (three feet) in diameter, but most are less than 50 cm. The long white arms and the 24 maroon tentacles may be as long as 3.6 to 4.6m (12 to 15 feet).

Feeding
Like most Cnidaria, the West Coast sea nettle is carnivorous. They catch their prey by using their Nematocyst-laden tentacles. The toxin(poison) in their Nematocyst are effective against their prey and humans. Since West Coast sea nettles can not chase their prey, they must eat as they drift, by spreading out their tentacles like a large net, the West Coast sea nettle is able to catch food as it passes by. When a prey brushes against the tentacles, thousands of nematocysts are released, launching barbed stingers which release a paralyzing toxin, then the oral arms begin digestion as they push the prey into the West Coast sea nettle's mouth.
The West Coast sea nettle feeds on different types of zooplankton, crustaceans, salps, pelagic snails, small fish as well as their eggs and larvae, and other jellyfish.

Jellyfish

West Coast sea nettle


William Thomas Pecora (February 1, 1913 – July 19, 1972) was an American geologist.

Life and career
Willam Thomas Pecora was born on February 1, 1913, in Belleville, New Jersey, son of Cono and Anna (Amabile) Pecora. Both parents were born in southern Italy, in the village of Sant'Arsenio. Pecora was the ninth of 10 children, four boys and six girls. His family was in the wholesale import business. In 1929, Pecora was awarded the Charles H. K. Halsey Scholarship that provided a $1,000 annual scholarship at Princeton University, where he majored in geology and geologic engineering; he was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1933. After graduation, he stayed on at Princeton as a geology tutor.

In the summer of 1934, he was a field assistant to Erling Dorf, working in Montana on Paleozoic stratigraphy. Pecora started graduate studies at Harvard University in 1935, concentrating on optical mineralogy and petrography. Pecora received a grant form the Holden Fund to finance fieldwork in 1937–1939 in the western fringe of the Bear Paw Mountains. His doctoral thesis was a petrologic study of the Boxelder laccolith. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1940.

Pecora was the United States intercollegiate fencing champion in 1933 and went to Germany at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as a member of the United States Olympic fencing team, competing in the individual and team foil events. He married Ethelwyn Elizabeth Carter from Franklin County, Kentucky, on April 7, 1947. They had two children, William Carter Pecora born in 1949 and Ann Stewart Pecora born in 1953.

In 1949, he started a large-scale geologic mapping program of eight fifteen-minute quadrangles in the Bearpaw Mountains. The first four of these maps was published in 1957 as Miscellaneous Geologic Investigation Maps and the other four were published in bulletins starting in 1960 and ending in 1963. In 1956, Pecora published a review paper on carbonatites which are carbonate-silicate rocks containing a variety of minerals, including impressive reserve of rare commodities such as titanium, zirconium, and uranium. In a 1962 paper, Pecora concentrated on the carbonatite deposits in the Bearpaw Mountains.

In 1957, Pecora was selected as Chief of the Branch of Geochemistry and Petrology within the United States Geological Survey. He established programs in geochronology, experimental petrology, and mineralogy. In 1961, he returned to research. He was named Chief Geologist in 1964 and a year later was appointed Director of the United States Geological Survey by President Lyndon B. Johnson. As Director, he pressed for programs that would be responsive to emerging national problems, such as investigations of gold resources and off-shore oil and gas exploration. He established the National Center of Earthquake Research in response to problems revealed by the 1964 Alaska earthquake. As Director, he advocated for the creation of a remote sensing satellite that would be used to gather information about the surface of the Earth, which became the Landsat program, the longest-running project for gathering images of Earth from space. Pecora was director of the USGS when the Astrogeology Research Program began in 1963.

Pecora also addressed the discovery of large oil reserves of oil and gas on the north coast of Alaska in 1968. Under his Direction, the U.S. Geological Survey made a careful study of the geologic aspects of the proposed pipeline route. From 1947 to 1967 he was a member of the United States Civil Service Commission's Board of Examiners for Geology, concerned with the development and maintenance of standards in the selection of geologists for federal employment. He was an active member of the Survey's Pick and Hammer shows, which were presented annually to make fun of top Survey managers. In 1970, Pecora expressed his opposition to burying the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, as it would be unsafe to place an underground pipeline in Arctic land He was appointed to serve as Undersecretary of the United States Department of Interior by President Richard Nixon on April 1, 1971.

He died at age 59 on July 19, 1972, at George Washington University Hospital after having surgery for diverticulitis the previous month. A statement from President Nixon called him "a remarkable civil servant and an internationally respected figure in the scientific community".

The mineral pecoraite was named for him, as was the Pecora Escarpment in Antarctica.

William T. Pecora Award
The William T. Pecora Award was established in 1974 to honor Pecora, and is sponsored jointly by the Department of the Interior and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is presented annually to individuals or groups that make outstanding contributions toward understanding the Earth by means of remote sensing.

Awards and honors
 1964 – President, Geological Society of Washington
 1965 – Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 1965 – Fellow, United States National Academy of Sciences
 1968 – President, Cosmos Club
 1968 – Distinguished Service Award, Department of the Interior
 1969 – Doctorate of Science, Franklin and Marshall College
 1969 – Rockefeller Public Service Award
 1970 – Member, American Philosophical Society
 1970 – Doctorate of Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
 1972 – Public Service Award, American Association of Petroleum Geologists
 1973 – a 6,000 foot ridge in the Bear Paw Mountains was named Pecora Ridge in honor of Pecora.
 Fellow and Councilor, Geological Society of America
 Fellow and Councilor, Mineralogical Society of America
 A Conference and Award are named in his honor.

Publications
 Pecora, William T. "Structure and Petrology of the Boxelder laccolith, Bearpaw Mountains, Montana" Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 817–853, Jun 1941
 Pecora, William T. and S.W. Hobbs, "Nickel-gold deposit near Mount Vernon, Skagit County, Washington" US Geological Survey Bulletin No. 931-D, pp. 57–78 (1941)
 Pecora, William T. and S.W. Hobbs, "Nickel deposit near Riddle, Douglas County, Oregon" " US Geological Survey Bulletin No. 931-I, pp. 205–226 (1942)
 Pecora, William Thomas "Nepheline-syenite pegmatites in the Bearpaw Mountains of Montana" American Mineralogist, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 191, Mar 1939
 Pecora, William Thomas and Bernard Fisher, "Cenozoic geologic history of the Bearpaw Mountains, Montana" Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 52, no. 12, Part 2, pp. 1926–1927, Dec 1941
 Pecora, William T, "Nickel-silicate and associated nickel- cobalt-manganese-oxide deposits near Sao Jose do Tocantins, Goiaz, Brazil" US Geological Survey Bulletin, No. 0935-E, pp. 247–305, 1944
 Brown, Roland Wilbur and William Thomas Pecora, "Paleocene and Eocene strata in the Bearpaw Mountains, Montana" Science, vol. 109, no. 2837, pp. 487–489, May 1949
 Pecora, William T; Barbosa, Aluizio Licinio de M; Klepper, M R, "Mica deposits in Minas Gerais, Brazil" US Geological Survey Bulletin, No. 0964-C, pp. 205–305, 1950
 Bannerman, Harold MacColl; Pecora, William Thomas "Training geologists; a United States Geological Survey viewpoint" US Geological Survey Circular, No. 73, 6 pp., 1950
 Lindberg, Marie Louise; Pecora, W T, "Tavorite and barbosalite; two new phosphate minerals from Minas Gerais, Brazil" Science, vol.119, no.3099, pp. 739, 1954
 Lindberg, Marie Louise; Pecora, W T, "Avelinoite, a new hydrous sodium ferric phosphate mineral from Minas Gerais, Brazil" Science, vol. 120, no. 3130, pp. 1074–1075, 1954
 Pecora, William Thomas, "Carbonatites; a review" Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 67, no. 11, pp. 1537–1555, Nov 1956
 Pecora, William Thomas, "Coesite craters and space geology" Geotimes, vol.5, no. 2, pp. 16–19, 1960
 Schmidt, Robert George; Pecora, W T; Hearn, B C, Jr, "Geology of the Cleveland Quadrangle, Bearpaw Mountains, Blaine County, Montana" US Geological Survey Bulletin, No. 1141-P, pp. P1–P26, 1964
 Pecora, William T, "Surveying the Earth's resources from space" Surveying and Mapping, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 639–643, 1967
 Pecora, William T, "Geologic applications of earth orbital satellites " Contained in "Space exploration and applications; Vol. 1" from the United Nations Conference on The Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna, Austria, 1968. pp. 634–644. 1969

References

Additional sources
 Memorial of William Thomas Pecora February 1, 1913–July 19, 1972
 Biographical Memoirs by National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) pp. 371–392 accessed in Google Books, January 9, 2009

External links
 Portrait of William Thomas Pecora via the US Geological Survey
 Photograph of William Thomas Pecora via the US Geological Survey

1913 births
1972 deaths
20th-century American geologists
Harvard University alumni
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
People from Belleville, New Jersey
Princeton University alumni
Fencers at the 1936 Summer Olympics
Olympic fencers for the United States
American people of Italian descent
United States Geological Survey personnel
Fellows of the Geological Society of America
American male foil fencers
Members of the American Philosophical Society

William Thomas Pecora