Question: Which states were most impacted by the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl migration was the largest in American history over a short timeframe, with roughly 3.5 million individuals leaving the Plains states between 1930 and 1940. Over 86,000 people moved to California in just over a year, exceeding the migration numbers of the 1849 Gold Rush. These migrants, primarily from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, were commonly labeled as "Okies", "Arkies", or "Texies". These terms became synonymous with the individuals who had lost everything and were facing the harshest realities of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The LHA dedicated the route on October 31, 1913. Bonfires, fireworks, concerts, parades, and street dances were held in hundreds of cities in the 13 states along the route. During a dedication ceremony in Iowa, State Engineer Thomas H. MacDonald said he felt it was "... the first outlet for the road building energies of this community".[1] He went on to advocate the creation of a system of transcontinental highways with radial routes. In 1919, MacDonald became Commissioner of the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), a post he held until 1953, when he oversaw the early stages of the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

The Four Corners is a region of the United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area is named after the quadripoint at the intersection of approximately 37° north latitude with 109° 03' west longitude, where the boundaries of the four states meet, and are marked by the Four Corners Monument. It is the only location in the United States where four states meet. Most of the Four Corners region belongs to semi-autonomous Native American nations, the largest of which is the Navajo Nation, followed by Hopi, Ute, and Zuni tribal reserves and nations. The Four Corners region is part of a larger region known as the Colorado Plateau and is mostly rural, rugged, and arid. In addition to the monument, commonly visited areas within Four Corners include Monument Valley, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Canyon, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The most populous city in the Four Corners region is Farmington, New Mexico, followed by Durango, Colorado.

In 1873, Barton S. Alexander completed a report for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that was the first attempt at creating a Central Valley Project. In 1904, the Bureau of Reclamation (then the Reclamation Service) first became interested in creating such a water project, but did not get far involved until a series of droughts and related disasters occurred in the early 1920s.[3] The State of California passed the Central Valley Project Act in 1933, which authorized Reclamation to sell revenue bonds in order to raise about $170 million for the project.[3] Unfortunately, because of insufficient money in the state's treasury and the coincidence with the Great Depression, California turned to the national government for funding to build the project. This resulted in several transfers of the project between California and the federal government, and between Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. The first dams and canals of the project started going up in the late 1930s, and the last facilities were completed in the early 1970s. Other features of the project were never constructed, some lie partly finished, or are still awaiting authorization.[3]

In 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior.[22] It took several years for this new agency to integrate and reorganize.[27] In the end, the Bureau of Land Management became less focused on land disposal and more focused on the long term management and preservation of the land.[22] The agency achieved its current form by combining offices in the western states and creating a corresponding office for lands both east of and alongside the Mississippi River.[28] As a matter of course, the BLM's emphasis fell on activities in the western states as most of the mining, land sales, and federally owned areas are located west of the Mississippi.[29]

When the U.S. entered World War II on December 8, 1941, many Montanans already had enlisted in the military to escape the poor national economy of the previous decade. Another 40,000-plus Montanans entered the armed forces in the first year following the declaration of war, and over 57,000 joined up before the war ended. These numbers constituted about 10 percent of the state's total population, and Montana again contributed one of the highest numbers of soldiers per capita of any state. Many Native Americans were among those who served, including soldiers from the Crow Nation who became Code Talkers. At least 1500 Montanans died in the war.[175] Montana also was the training ground for the First Special Service Force or "Devil's Brigade," a joint U.S-Canadian commando-style force that trained at Fort William Henry Harrison for experience in mountainous and winter conditions before deployment.[175][176] Air bases were built in Great Falls, Lewistown, Cut Bank and Glasgow, some of which were used as staging areas to prepare planes to be sent to allied forces in the Soviet Union. During the war, about 30 Japanese balloon bombs were documented to have landed in Montana, though no casualties nor major forest fires were attributed to them.[175]

During this time many Americans found it difficult to reconcile slavery with their interpretation of Christianity and the lofty sentiments that flowed from the Declaration of Independence. A small antislavery movement, led by the Quakers, had some impact in the 1780's and by the late 1780's all of the states except for Georgia had placed some restrictions on their participation in slave trafficking. Still, no serious national political movement against slavery developed, largely due to the overriding concern over achieving national unity.[11] When the Constitutional Convention met, slavery was the one issue "that left the least possibility of compromise, the one that would most pit morality against pragmatism.[12] In the end, while many would take comfort in the fact that the word slavery never occurs in the Constitution, critics note that the three-fifths clause provided slaveholders with extra representatives in Congress, the requirement of the federal government to suppress domestic violence would dedicate national resources to defending against slave revolts, a twenty-year delay in banning the import of slaves allowed the South to fortify its labor needs, and the amendment process made the national abolition of slavery very unlikely in the foreseeable future.[13]

Germany was a large country with many diverse subregions which contributed immigrants. Dubuque was the base of the Ostfriesische Nachrichten ("East Fresian News") from 1881 to 1971. It connected the 20,000 immigrants from East Friesland (Ostfriesland), Germany, to each other across the Midwest, and to their old homeland. In Germany East Friesland was often a topic of ridicule regarding backward rustics, but editor Leupke HÃ¼ndling shrewdly combined stories of proud memories of Ostfriesland. The editor enlisted a network of local correspondents. By mixing local American and local German news, letters, poetry, fiction, and dialogue, the German-language newspaper allowed immigrants to honor their origins and celebrate their new life as highly prosperous farmers with much larger farms than were possible back in impoverished Ostfriesland. During the world wars, when Germania came under heavy attack, the paper stressed its humanitarian role, mobilizing readers to help the people of East Friesland with relief funds. Younger generations could usually speak German but not read it, so the subscription based dwindled away as the target audience Americanized itself.[67]

During the Progressive Era (1890sâ€“1920), Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson instituted regulation on parts of the American economy, most notably in regulating big business and industry. Some of their most prominent reforms are trust-busting (the destruction and banning of monopolies), the creation of laws protecting the American consumer, the creation of a federal income tax (by the Sixteenth Amendment; the income tax used a progressive tax structure with especially high taxes on the wealthy), the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and the institution of shorter working hours, higher wages, better living conditions, better rights and privileges to trade unions, protection of rights of strikers, banning of unfair labor practices, and the delivery of more social services to the working classes and social safety nets to many unemployed workers, thus helping to facilitate the creation of a welfare state in the United States and eventually in most developed countries.

A recent prominent example of quorum-busting occurred during the 2003 Texas redistricting, in which the majority Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives sought to carry out a controversial mid-decade congressional redistricting bill which would have favored Republicans by displacing five Democratic U.S. Representatives from Texas (the Texas Five) from their districts. The House Democrats, certain of defeat if a quorum were present, took a plane to the neighboring state of Oklahoma to prevent a quorum from being present (and thus the passage of the bill). The group gained the nickname "the Killer Ds."

Texas has long been the focal point of this dichotomy, and is often considered, as such, the core area of "the South's Southwest."[107] While the Trans-Pecos area is generally acknowledged as part of the desert Southwest,[111] most of Texas and large parts of Oklahoma are often placed into a sub-region of the South, which some consider southwestern in the general framework of the original application, meaning the "Western South". This is an area containing the basic elements of Southern history, culture, politics, religion, and linguistic and settlement patterns, yet blended with traits of the frontier West. While this particular Southwest is notably different in many ways from the classic "Old South" or Southeast, these features are strong enough to give it a separate southwestern identity quite different in nature from that of the interior southwestern states to the west.


Question: Provide the formula for the substance known as carbonic acid.

Carbonic acid, represented by the chemical formula H2CO3 or OC(OH)2, is a compound that forms when carbon dioxide dissolves in water. This compound is also referred to as volatile acid or respiratory acid in physiological contexts, as it is the sole acid expelled as a gas through the lungs. Carbonic acid is crucial for maintaining the body's acid-base balance through the bicarbonate buffer system.

The proton (H+)â€‰[5] is one of the strongest but is also one of the most complicated Lewis acids.  It is convention to ignore the fact that a proton is heavily solvated (bound to solvent).  With this simplification in mind, acid-base reactions can be viewed as the formation of adducts:

Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. Powdered borax is white, consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve in water. A number of closely related minerals or chemical compounds that differ in their crystal water content are referred to as borax, but the word is usually used to refer to the decahydrate. Commercially sold borax is partially dehydrated.

The viability of the Friedel–Crafts acylation depends on the stability of the acyl chloride reagent. Formyl chloride, for example, is too unstable to be isolated. Thus, synthesis of benzaldehyde via the Friedel–Crafts pathway requires that formyl chloride be synthesized in situ. This is accomplished via the Gattermann-Koch reaction, accomplished by treating benzene with carbon monoxide and hydrogen chloride under high pressure, catalyzed by a mixture of aluminium chloride and cuprous chloride.

Sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic base and alkali that decomposes proteins at ordinary ambient temperatures and may cause severe chemical burns. It is highly soluble in water, and readily absorbs moisture and carbon dioxide from the air. It forms a series of hydrates NaOH·nH
2O.[10] The monohydrate NaOH·H
2O crystallizes from water solutions between 12.3 and 61.8 °C. The commercially available "sodium hydroxide" is often this monohydrate, and published data may refer to it instead of the anhydrous compound. As one of the simplest hydroxides, it is frequently utilised alongside neutral water and acidic hydrochloric acid to demonstrate the pH scale to chemistry students.[11]

Formic acid is named after ants which have high concentrations of the compound in their venom. In ants formic acid is derived from serine through a 5,10-Methenyltetrahydrofolate intermediate.[18] The conjugate base of formic acid, formate, also occurs widely in nature. An assay for formic acid in body fluids, designed for determination of formate after methanol poisoning, is based on the reaction of formate with bacterial formate dehydrogenase.[19]

Amides are pervasive in nature and technology as structural materials. The amide linkage is easily formed, confers structural rigidity, and resists hydrolysis. Nylons are polyamides, as are the very resilient materials Aramid, Twaron, and Kevlar. Amide linkages constitute a defining molecular feature of proteins, the secondary structure of which is due in part to the hydrogen bonding abilities of amides. Amide linkages in a biochemical context are called peptide bonds when they occur in the main chain of a protein and isopeptide bonds when they occur to a side-chain of the protein. Proteins can have structural roles, such as in hair or spider silk, but also nearly all enzymes are proteins. Low molecular weight amides, such as dimethylformamide (HC(O)N(CH3)2), are common solvents. Many drugs are amides, including paracetamol, penicillin and LSD. Moreover, plant N-alkylamides have a wide range of biological functionalities.[7]

For cases where no sharing was involved, Lewis in 1923 developed the electron pair theory of acids and base: Lewis redefined an acid as any atom or molecule with an incomplete octet that was thus capable of accepting electrons from another atom; bases were, of course, electron donors. His theory is known as the concept of Lewis acids and bases. In 1923, G. N. Lewis and Merle Randall published Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances, first modern treatise on chemical thermodynamics.

In another comparison of Lewis and Brønsted–Lowry acidity by Brown and Kanner,[11] 2,6-di-t-butylpyridine reacts to form the hydrochloride salt with HCl but does not react with BF3. This example demonstrates that steric factors, in addition to electron configuration factors, play a role in determining the strength of the interaction between the bulky di-t-butylpyridine and tiny proton.

The Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula, also known as Bridge Formula B or the Federal Bridge Formula, is a mathematical formula in use in the United States by truck drivers and Department of Transportation (DOT) officials to determine the appropriate maximum gross weight for a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) based on axle number and spacing. The formula is part of federal weight and size regulations regarding interstate commercial traffic (intrastate traffic is subject to state limits). The formula is necessary to prevent heavy vehicles from damaging roads and bridges. CMVs are most often tractor-trailers or buses, but the formula is of most interest to truck drivers due to the heavy loads their vehicles often carry.

Formic acid is about ten times stronger than acetic acid. It is used as a volatile pH modifier in HPLC and capillary electrophoresis.


Question: Who was the star in the movie "Walk the Line"?

Walk the Line is a 2005 American biographical drama film directed by James Mangold. The movie, based on the autobiographies of Johnny Cash, stars Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, Ginnifer Goodwin as Vivian Liberto, and Robert Patrick as Cash's father. It chronicles Cash's early life, his relationship with Carter, and his rise in the country music industry.

Rooker was given more dramatic roles in films such as Eight Men Out, Mississippi Burning, and JFK, but he became widely known for his roles in action and thriller films such as Sea of Love, Days of Thunder, Cliffhanger,[7] and Tombstone.[8] He also starred in Mallrats, Rosewood, The 6th Day, Slither, Jumper, Super[9] and Hypothermia.[10][11]

Jason Bonham also appeared in the movie Rock Star, 2001. Bonham played drummer A.C., of the fictional band Steel Dragon. The film also featured performances by musicians such as Zakk Wylde, Jeff Pilson, Myles Kennedy, Jeff Scott Soto, Brian Vander Ark, Blas Elias and Nick Catanese. He also played on the film's soundtrack.

Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "Aâˆ’" rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Crowe for depicting the 1970s as "an era that found its purpose in having no purpose. Crowe, staying close to his memories, has gotten it, for perhaps the first time, onto the screen."[21] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan praised Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Lester Bangs: "Superbly played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, more and more the most gifted and inspired character actor working in film, what could have been the cliched portrait of an older mentor who speaks the straight truth blossoms into a marvelous personality."[22] However, in his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris felt that "none of the non-musical components on the screen matched the excitement of the music. For whatever reason, too much of the dark side has been left out."[23] Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, found it "very hard to see these long-haired kids as products of the 1970s instead of dressed up actors from the Seattle-Starbucks era. I couldn't help wondering how many of these performers had to buy a CD copy of the song and study it for the first time."[24]

In 2003, Chandler played scheming lawyer Grant Rashton in six episodes of the short-lived NBC series The Lyon's Den, opposite Rob Lowe.[19] Working again in film, Chandler played the 1930s film star Bruce Baxter in the 2005 film King Kong (the character was based on romantic film star Bruce Cabot, who played Jack Driscoll in the original King Kong). Coincidentally, Chandler later played John Driscoll in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

A live tour, based on the album, began in the UK and Ireland in April 2006. Jeff Wayne returned to conduct the 48-piece ULLAdubULLA Strings and 10-piece Black Smoke Band. A "virtual" Richard Burton (a large bust of the Journalist onto which was projected an image of a young Burton with a super-imposed actor's mouth and jaw lip synched to the original Burton recordings) performed as The Journalist. Justin Hayward reprised his original role as The Sung Thoughts of the Journalist and Chris Thompson returned as The Voice Of Humanity. Also from the original recording were Chris Spedding playing lead guitar and Herbie Flowers on bass guitar. Other guest artists who appeared were the "People's Tenor" Russell Watson as Parson Nathaniel, Alexis James as The Artilleryman, and Tara Blaise as Beth. Daniel Boys (known from BBC's Any Dream Will Do) was understudy for all the roles sung by male artists. A model Fighting Machine featured on stage. A short animated 'prequel' to the story was also presented in the style of the upcoming feature-length film detailing the Martians' ecological destruction of their own world (which was originally made for the 1998 computer game) and their preparations to invade Earth, and including a short remix of "The Red Weed". The show was produced by Ray Jones, Damian Collier and Jeff Wayne.

The song was featured in the 1983 film Risky Business, starring Tom Cruise. Cruise's character, Joel Goodson, famously lip-syncs and dances in his underwear as this song plays after his parents leave him home alone. In 1986, the song was also featured in the TV series "ALF", in a caricature of the before mentioned Tom cruise scene, in which Alf has similarly been left home alone and trashed the house.[8] Activision created a series of Guitar Hero: World Tour television commercials directed by Brett Ratner based on the scene, each featuring a different set of celebrities lip-sync to the lyrics while using the new instrument controllers. The first ad included athletes Kobe Bryant, Tony Hawk, Alex Rodriguez, and Michael Phelps.[9]

The 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, for which Ellen Burstyn won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and also starring Kris Kristofferson, was set in Tucson. The climax of the 1977 Clint Eastwood film The Gauntlet takes place in downtown Phoenix. The final segments of the 1984 film Starman take place at Meteor Crater outside Winslow. The Jeff Foxworthy comedy documentary movie Blue Collar Comedy Tour was filmed almost entirely at the Dodge Theatre. Some of Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Psycho was shot in Phoenix, the ostensible home town of the main character.

In 2008, Shelton had a brief appearance in the biopic film about George W. Bush, W., directed by Oliver Stone, and took on her first full-time television role in CBS's Eleventh Hour, appearing as FBI Special Agent Rachel Young of the executive protection detail.[55] The show earned mixed reviews,[56] but Shelton received negative notes for her portrayal; Robert Bianco wrote for USA Today that she has "no character to play at all, or at least none that stays consistent between the two episodes made available for review", while Chicago Tribune remarked that her performance was "much less interesting" than co-star Rufus Sewell's and that whenever her character "opens her mouth, the showâ€™s flaws come into sharp relief".[57][58] The series was canceled after one season due to its inability to hold the CSI audience lead-in.[59][60]

At Close Range is a 1986 American crime drama film directed by James Foley, based on the real life rural Pennsylvania crime family led by Bruce Johnston Sr. which operated during the 1960s and 1970s. It stars Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, with Mary Stuart Masterson, Sean's brother Chris Penn, David Strathairn, Crispin Glover, Kiefer Sutherland, and Eileen Ryan (the Penns' real-life mother) in supporting roles. The film was critically acclaimed.[2]

While Alias was airing, Garner continued to work in film intermittently. She had an "other-worldly" experience when Steven Spielberg called to offer her a role as a high-class call girl in Catch Me if You Can (2002).[45] After seeing her in Alias, Speilberg felt sure "she would be the next superstar".[46] She filmed her scene opposite Leonardo DiCaprio during a one-day shoot.[47] Garner's first co-starring film role was in the action movie Daredevil (2003), in which she played Elektra to Ben Affleck's Daredevil.[48] The physicality required for the role was something Garner had discovered "an aptitude for" while working on Alias.[45][49] Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times said she "realizes Elektra more through movement than by way of her lumpy, obvious lines. She hasn't mastered the combat skill of tossing off bad material."[50] While Daredevil received mixed reviews, it was a box office success.[51] Also in 2003, Garner voiced herself in an episode of The Simpsons.


Question: Where is the table of contents located in a book?

A table of contents, commonly abbreviated as TOC, is a list typically located at the beginning of a book or written work. It provides an overview of the chapters or sections, along with their corresponding starting page numbers, facilitating easy navigation for the reader.

Book burning can be an act of contempt for the book's contents or author, and the act is intended to draw wider public attention to this opinion. Examples include the burning of Wilhelm Reich's books by the FDA and the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy.

Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous United States editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the book was co-founded by brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter in Fleet Street, London in August 1954.

The standard Russian text of War and Peace is divided into four books (comprising fifteen parts) and an epilogue in two parts.  Roughly the first half is concerned strictly with the fictional characters, whereas the latter parts, as well as the second part of the epilogue, increasingly consist of essays about the nature of war, power, history, and historiography.  Tolstoy interspersed these essays into the story in a way that defies previous fictional convention.  Certain abridged versions remove these essays entirely, while others, published even during Tolstoy's life, simply moved these essays into an appendix.[citation needed]

"Search Inside the Book" is a feature which allows customers to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the catalog.[105][106] The feature started with 120,000 titles (or 33 million pages of text) on October 23, 2003.[107] There are about 300,000 books in the program. Amazon has cooperated with around 130 publishers to allow users to perform these searches.[citation needed]

In May 2005 Martin announced that his manuscript for A Feast for Crows had hit 1527 completed pages but still remained unfinished, with "another hundred or so pages of roughs and incomplete chapters, as well as other chapters sketched out but entirely unwritten."[3] As the size of the manuscript for 2000's A Storm of Swords, his previous novel, had been a problem for publishers around the world at 1521 pages, Martin and his publishers had decided to split the narrative planned for A Feast for Crows into two books.[3] Rather than divide the text in half chronologically, Martin opted to instead split the material by character and location:

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Spring and Autumn period in 5th century BC. The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu ("Master Sun", also spelled Sunzi), is composed of 13 chapters. Each one is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics. For almost 1,500 years it was the lead text in an anthology that would be formalised as the Seven Military Classics by Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1080. The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asia.[1] It has a profound influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.

A common complaint among users regarding software documentation is that only one of these three approaches was taken to the near-exclusion of the other two. It is common to limit provided software documentation for personal computers to online help that give only reference information on commands or menu items. The job of tutoring new users or helping more experienced users get the most out of a program is left to private publishers, who are often given significant assistance by the software developer.

The game has over 300 books (not counting spell scrolls). One particular compilation of the text was 1,241 sheets of 8.25 × 11 inch paper.[35] PC Gamer weighted the in-game text as equal to six typical-size novels.[20] Many of these books provide long, serial stories, and provide hints as to the background and history of the game.[7] One critic in particular, Phillip Scuderi, remembered Morrowind for its great literary richness. To him, the in-game literature and its integration within the game were Morrowind's "most original and lasting contribution to the history of games", one that would place it beside Planescape: Torment as one of the most important games of all time.[36] Such themes are echoed in other responses to the game, such as that of RPGamer's Joseph Witham, who found the story "discreet" in its progression, with a dungeon-crawling feel, standing alongside a "whole world of unique history" with books forming the greater part of the player's interaction with that world.[37] Most of the books were reused in Oblivion.

One of the innovations of the Dewey Decimal system was that of positioning books on the shelves in relation to other books on similar topics. When the system was first introduced, most libraries in the US used fixed positioning: each book was assigned a permanent shelf position based on the book's height and date of acquisition.[14] Library stacks were generally closed to all but the most privileged patrons, so shelf browsing was not considered of importance. The use of the Dewey Decimal system increased during the early 20th century as librarians were convinced of the advantages of relative positioning and of open shelf access for patrons.[14]

Allusion is a figure of speech, in which one refers covertly or indirectly to an object or circumstance from an external context.[1] It is left to the audience to make the connection;[2] where the connection is directly and explicitly stated (as opposed to indirectly implied) by the author, it is instead usually termed a reference.[3][4][5] In the arts, a literary allusion puts the alluded text in a new context under which it assumes new meanings and denotations.[6] It is not possible to predetermine the nature of all the new meanings and inter-textual patterns that an allusion will generate.[6] Literary allusion is closely related to parody and pastiche, which are also "text-linking" literary devices.[6]


Question: Where is the table of contents located in a book?

A table of contents is a list that appears at the beginning of a book, providing an outline of its structure by including the titles or descriptions of the first-level headers, such as chapter titles, and often second-level or section titles within the chapters. The level of detail in the table of contents varies based on the length of the work, with longer works having less detailed tables. In an English-language book, the table of contents is typically found after the title page, copyright notices, and abstract (in technical journals), and before any lists of tables or figures, the foreword, and the preface.

A "tag" in an audio file is a section of the file that contains metadata such as the title, artist, album, track number or other information about the file's contents. The MP3 standards do not define tag formats for MP3 files, nor is there a standard container format that would support metadata and obviate the need for tags. However, several de facto standards for tag formats exist. As of 2010, the most widespread are ID3v1 and ID3v2, and the more recently introduced APEv2. These tags are normally embedded at the beginning or end of MP3 files, separate from the actual MP3 frame data. MP3 decoders either extract information from the tags, or just treat them as ignorable, non-MP3 junk data.

In academic publishing, a paper is an academic work that is usually published in an academic journal. It contains original research results or reviews existing results. Such a paper, also called an article, will only be considered valid if it undergoes a process of peer review by one or more referees (who are academics in the same field) who check that the content of the paper is suitable for publication in the journal. A paper may undergo a series of reviews, revisions, and re-submissions before finally being accepted or rejected for publication. This process typically takes several months. Next, there is often a delay of many months (or in some subjects, over a year) before an accepted manuscript appears. This is particularly true for the most popular journals where the number of accepted articles often outnumbers the space for printing. Due to this, many academics self-archive a 'pre-print' copy of their paper for free download from their personal or institutional website.

The title is taken from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokalypsis, which means "unveiling" or "revelation". The author names himself as "John", but it is currently considered unlikely that the author of Revelation was also the author of the Gospel of John. Some of the evidence for this was set out as early as the second half of the 3rd century by Pope Dionysius of Alexandria, who noted that the gospel and the epistles attributed to John, unlike Revelation, do not name their author, and that the Greek of the gospel is correct and elegant while that of Revelation is neither; some later scholars believe that the two books also have radical differences in theological perspective.[6]

A cue sheet is a form usually generated by the deputy stage manager or design department head that indicates information about the cue including execution, timing, sequence, intensity (for lights), and volume (for sound). The board operators, running and deck crews may have copies of the cue sheet with just the information dealing with their department. The stage manager keeps a master list of all the cues in the show and keeps track of them in the prompt book.

The term is not strictly defined, though Merriam-Webster's full dictionary definition is "a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a book", while its simplest definition is given as "cartoon drawings that tell a story and are published as a book".[4] In the publishing trade, the term extends to material that would not be considered a novel if produced in another medium.[citation needed] Collections of comic books that do not form a continuous story, anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as "graphic novels" (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic" books).[citation needed] The term is also sometimes used to distinguish between works created as standalone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of a story arc from a comic book series published in book form.[5][6][7]

The book has been classified as a postmodern, metafictional novel. The first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five is written in the style of an author's preface about how he came to write the novel. The Narrator begins the novel by telling of his connection to the Dresden bombing, and why he is recording it. He gives a description of himself, and the book, saying that it is a desperate attempt at scholarly work. He segues to the story of Billy Pilgrim: "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time," thus the transition from the writer's perspective to that of the third-person, omniscient Narrator. (The use of "Listen" as an opening interjection mimics the epic poem Beowulf.) The Narrator introduces Slaughterhouse-Five with the novel's genesis and ends the first chapter by discussing the beginning and the end of the novel. The fictional "story" appears to begin in chapter two, although there is no reason to presume that the first chapter is not fiction. This technique is common to postmodern meta-fiction.[7] The story purports to be a disjointed narrative, from Billy Pilgrim's point of view, of being unstuck in time. Vonnegut's writing usually contains such disorder. He apologizes for the novel being "so short and jumbled and jangled," but says "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre."

Page name is a term that is used to refer to any page that is sent from a Wikipedia database. But page name usually doesn't refer to virtual namespaces, like Special or Media pages. The page name is normally the same as the displayed title; the displayed title is shown on the title line, near the top of the page, in a big font. But the displayed title can be altered slightly from the page name without affecting things much, see Changing the displayed title below

A web content management system (WCMS)[1] is a software content management system (CMS) specifically for web content.  It provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools that help users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages create and manage website content.  A WCMS provides the foundation for collaboration, providing users the ability to manage documents and output for multiple author editing and participation.  Most systems use a content repository or a database to store page content, metadata, and other information assets the  system needs.

The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning "belonging to the second canon") is a term adopted in 16th century by the Roman Catholic Church to denote those books and passages of the Christian Old Testament, as defined in 1546 by the Council of Trent, that were not found in the Hebrew Bible. The term distinguished these texts both from those that were termed protocanonical books, which were the books of the Hebrew canon; and from the apocryphal books, which were those books of Jewish origin that were known sometimes to have been read in church as scripture but which the Council considered not to be canonical.


Question: Who portrayed Mr. Wilson in the "Dennis the Menace" series?

Joseph Kearns was an American actor best known for his portrayal of George Wilson, also known as "Mr. Wilson," in the CBS TV series Dennis the Menace from 1959 until his passing in 1962. He also lent his voice to the character of the Doorknob in Disney's animated film Alice in Wonderland.

Hill was the original leader of the Impossible Missions Force, Dan Briggs, in the series Mission: Impossible beginning in 1966. The phrase "Good morning, Mr. Briggs..." was a fixture early in each episode, where a tape recording he retrieved detailed the task he must accomplish. However, he was replaced in the show in 1967 after the end of the first season. As one of the few Orthodox Jewish actors working in Hollywood, he made it clear in advance of production that he was not able to work on the Sabbath (i.e., sundown Friday to dusk Saturday), and that he would leave the set every Friday before sundown.[17] However, despite Hill's advance warnings, the show's producers were unprepared for his rigid adherence to the Sabbath, and on at least one occasion, Hill left the set while an episode was still in the midst of filming. The producers used a number of ways of reducing the role of Hill's character Dan Briggs whereby his character would only obtain and hand out the mission details at the start of certain episodes being unable to take further part as he was known to people they would encounter (used at least three times), or Briggs would need to don a disguise and another actor would then play his role incognito until the conclusion of the mission (and episode) when Briggs peeled off a face mask. On other occasions, Briggs was waiting to pick up the team at the end. Usually, Martin Landau's character (Rollin Hand) took over as the team leader for missions in Briggs's absence, Landau being initially a "special guest star" for the first season, not even included in the show's original opening credits.[17]

Starting in late 2005, Boyle and former TV wife Doris Roberts appeared in TV commercials for the 75th anniversary of Alka-Seltzer, reprising the famous line, "I can't believe I ate that whole thing!" Although this quote has entered into popular culture, it is often misquoted as, "...the whole thing."[18] Boyle had a role in all three of The Santa Clause films. In the original, he plays Scott Calvin's boss. In the sequels, he plays Father Time.

Ferrer played Los Angeles Police Lieutenant Felix Valdez in the 2011 Lifetime police procedural drama, The Protector. Also in 2011, he started a multiple-episode guest role on the final season of Desperate Housewives. Signed to a recurring role in NCIS: Los Angeles as Naval Criminal Investigative Service Assistant Director Owen Granger, Ferrer was promoted to a series regular for the fifth season on February 6, 2013.[4] He also appeared in the 2013 film Iron Man 3 as the Vice President. Ferrer reprised his role of Albert Rosenfield in the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks.[5]

D'Onofrio continued to play a wide variety of minor or supporting roles, including the father of a saint in Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), director Orson Welles in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), farmer Edgar and the evil "Bug" that possesses him from Men in Black (1997), Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman in Steal This Movie! (2000), a man who claims to be from the future in Happy Accidents (2000), and the serial killer Carl Stargher, opposite Jennifer Lopez's character in The Cell (2000).

Mr. Noodle and his siblings—Mr. Noodle's brother Mister Noodle, Ms Noodle, and Miss Noodle—are characters who appear in the "Elmo's World" segments during the educational children's television program Sesame Street. Mr. Noodle was played by Broadway actor Bill Irwin, who had previously worked with Arlene Sherman, executive producer of Sesame Street and co-creator of "Elmo's World", in short films for the program.[1]

Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, writer, producer, and comedian.[1] A member of the Baldwin family, he is the eldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all actors. Baldwin first gained recognition appearing on seasons 6 and 7 of the CBS television drama Knots Landing, in the role of Joshua Rush. He has played both leading and supporting roles in films such as the horror comedy fantasy film Beetlejuice (1988), as Jack Ryan in the action thriller The Hunt for Red October (1990), the romantic comedy The Marrying Man (1991), the superhero film The Shadow (1994), Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), and two films directed by Martin Scorsese: the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) and the neo-noir crime drama The Departed (2006). His performance in the 2003 romantic drama The Cooler garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Lynn replaced Patricia Kirkland in the role of Betty Blake in the CBS comedy, The Egg and I (1951-1952),[9] and she played Pearl in the ABC comedy Love That Jill (1958).[9]:631 She was Viola Slaughter in the ABC Western Texas John Slaughter (1958-1962).[9]:1064 In the 1953â€“1954 television season, Lynn was cast as June Wallace,[9]:1171 the sister-in-law of the Ray Bolger character in the ABC sitcom Where's Raymond? Allyn Joslyn played her husband, Jonathan Wallace. Lynn and Joslyn left the series in its second season when it was renamed The Ray Bolger Show.[10][8]

A month after this episode, Swenson was cast again on Sugarfoot, this time as a wealthy Irish rancher, Dennis O'Hara. Sue Randall plays his daughter, Kathy, an aspiring concert pianist attracted to another pianist, Frederick, Pulaski (Adam West) Frank Cady played a corrupt lawyer to whom O'Hara had blindly trusted his business.[12]

When Dad's Army ended in 1977, Lowe remained much in demand, taking starring roles in television comedies such as Bless Me, Father with Daniel Abineri (1978–1981), as the mischievous Catholic priest Father Charles Clement Duddleswell and in Potter (1979–80) as the busybody Redvers Potter. By now he was making many television advertisement commercials, but his later stage career mainly involved touring the provinces, appearing in plays and pantomimes with his wife, Joan.

Peter Lawrence Boyle (October 18, 1935 â€“ December 12, 2006) was an American actor. Known as a character actor, he played Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and the comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein (1974). Boyle, who won an Emmy Award in 1996 for a guest-starring role on the science-fiction drama The X-Files, won praise in both comedic and dramatic parts following his breakthrough performance in the 1970 film Joe.[1]


Question: Who resides on the 50th floor of Trump Tower?

On April 7, 2018, a 4-alarm fire erupted on the 50th floor of Trump Tower, resulting in the death of a resident and injuries to six firefighters. The fire was almost fully engulfing the apartment by the time the FDNY arrived. The deceased, 67-year-old Todd Brassner, an art dealer with a connection to Andy Warhol, had been living with significant health issues. Brassner's apartment, like the other residential units in Trump Tower, lacked sprinklers due to the building's pre-1999 construction, before the city mandated sprinklers in residential spaces; Trump had previously opposed such regulations. The fire was later determined to have been accidentally caused by overheated power wires. This incident occurred after a minor electrical fire earlier in the year that injured three individuals.

In May 2010, the house was placed on the market with an asking price of $1.15Â million. In August 2010, the house was sold to a local resident for $950,000.[32][33] On August 21, 2010, the departing owner held a moving sale at the house, and hundreds of people turned up for the event. They were allowed to go inside the house, but not to visit the upstairs rooms or the basement.[34]

At the 18th floor, the building splits into the San Remo's iconic 10-floor towers, which were inspired by the drum of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates and culminating in Renaissance-style Corinthian temples crowned by 22-foot-high copper lanterns.[1][5] The twin tower design was innovative when first developed, and inspired a number of imitators over the years (including The Majestic, The Century, The Eldorado and—most recently—the Time Warner Center).[citation needed]

On October 15, 2008, Wallenda performed on a live broadcast of Today. The plan was to walk and then bicycle off the roof of the Prudential Center in Downtown Newark, New Jersey, across a suspended high-wire 13 and 1/2 stories (135 feet) above the ground.[1] Starting at 8:30am, he first walked across the 250-foot-long (76 m) cable with a 45-foot (14 m) balancing pole. Halfway through, he sat down on the wire and called the Today show hosts. "Where are you?" he asked, joking that he was expecting to carry one of the show's hosts across the wire on his shoulder.[1] Sitting down on the wire is easy, he said, it is getting back up that is tricky. A few steps before completing the walk, Wallenda stopped and waved to the crowd. When he resumed, he wobbled and had to bend his knees to regain balance. "I actually slipped," he said later. "I lost focus there for a moment" because of some unexpected tape on the wire.[1] He completed the walk in about five minutes.[1]

In the August 14, 2007, issue of AM New York McDuffie said he passed five polygraph tests confirming his claim to be the man.[24] McDuffie, a native of Kannapolis, North Carolina, who had lied about his age so he could enlist at the age of 15, went on after the war to play semi-pro baseball and work for the United States Postal Service.[25][26] He says that on that day he was on the subway to Brooklyn to visit his girlfriend, Ardith Bloomfield.[24] He came out of the subway at Times Square, where people were celebrating in the streets. Excited that his brother, who was being held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war, would be released, McDuffie began hollering and jumping up and down. A nurse saw him, and opened her arms to him. In apparent conflict with Eisenstaedt's recollections of the event, McDuffie said he ran over to her and kissed her for a long time so that Eisenstaedt could take the photograph:

During his next visit April 6â€“9, President Trump hosted the Chinese leader Xi Jinping for the first two days.[35][36][37] At Mar-a-Lago the decision to strike a Syrian airfield was made.[37] The following Easter weekend was also spent with family members at Mar-a-Lago.[38]

The house at One Observatory Circle was designed by architect Leon E. Dessez and built in 1893 for $20,000 for the use of the superintendent of the Naval Observatory who was the original resident. It was built on 13 acres of land that had originally been part of a 73-acre farm called Northview, which the Navy purchased in 1880. The observatory was moved from Foggy Bottom to its new location the same year the house was completed and twelve Observatory Superintendents lived in what was then known as The Superintendent's House. In 1928, with the passage of Public Law 630, Congress appropriated it for the Chief of Naval Operations, and in June 1929 Charles Frederick "Handlebars" Hughes became the first resident of what would then become known as Admiral's House.[2] For the next 45 years it served as the home of such notable Admirals as Chester W. Nimitz and Elmo Zumwalt. The home was originally dark red brick. Then in 1960, it was painted "feather" gray and, in 1963, white with black shutters. Now it is cream colored.[3]

In July 2001, when Donald Trump announced plans for the site of the former seven-story Sun-Times Building, the tower was expected to reach a height of 1,500 feet (457.2 m), which would have made it the world's tallest building. It was expected to contain between 2,400,000 and 3,100,000 square feet (220,000 and 290,000 m2) of floor space[74][75][76] and cost about $77 million just for the property rights.[77] Three architectural firms were considered: Lohan Associates, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill;[78][79] Trump selected Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in August 2001. Adrian Smith, who had previously designed the Jin Mao Tower,[80] headed the SOM team,[10][81] giving Chicago a third skyscraper from the same firm which had previously designed the Willis Tower and the Hancock Center.[1]

New York Institute of Technology's Old Westbury, New York, campus is seated on 1,050 acres (425Â ha). It encompasses numerous contiguous former estates situated in the beautiful wooded hillsides of Old Westbury, New York. Some of these estates were formerly owned by members of the Rockefeller family.[42] Opened in 1965, the campus is largest in size, but in student population. It has many buildings including a sports complex, administrative and academic buildings, a 100-seat "smart" auditorium,[43] several dining halls, a bookstore, as well as NYIT's de Seversky Mansion, a party and event venue on Long Island, and one of the largest houses in the United States.[44] It was developed on and around the nucleus of the former C. V. Whitney estate and includes several former North Shore estates. Original buildings have been reconstructed for educational use while retaining the charm of traditional exteriors. To preserve the natural beauty of the landscape, other buildings are clustered in low, modern structures surrounded by trees and open vistas. Classroom buildings and parking areas are connected by walkways through woods and meadows untouched by construction. Plazas connect classroom buildings and act as outdoor rooms for students and faculty. Concerts, lectures, and informal recreational events are frequently scheduled on campus.[45]

The club hosted the wedding of Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, in October 2009.[12][13]


Question: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia were all once part of which country?

The Dissolution of Yugoslavia
In the aftermath of World War II, Yugoslavia was established as a federation consisting of six republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. These republics were demarcated along historical and ethnic lines, with two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, established within Serbia. Each republic operated under the guidance of its own branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, with any conflicts being resolved at the federal level. This unique model of state governance, along with a blend of planned and liberal economic policies, proved relatively successful under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, who maintained strong economic growth and political stability until the 1980s. However, following Tito's death in 1980, the federal government struggled to address mounting economic and political issues due to its weakened structure.

The International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) was established in 1992 by the European Union, Japan, the Russian Federation and the USA to engage weapons scientists in civilian research projects and to foster technology transfer. ISTC branches have been set up in the following countries party to the agreement: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The headquarters of ISTC were moved to Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan in June 2014, three years after the Russian Federation announced its withdrawal from the centre.[28]

At the end of the championship, the captains of the United States team (Tom Florie)[42] and Yugoslavia (Milutin Ivković)[43] both received bronze medals. Yet a FIFA technical committee report on the 1986 World Cup included full retrospective rankings of all teams at all previous World Cup finals; this report ranked the United States third and Yugoslavia fourth,[44] a practice since continued by FIFA.[45] In 2010, the son of Kosta Hadži, the chief of Yugoslav delegation at the 1930 World Cup and the vice-president of the Football Association of Yugoslavia at the time, claimed that Yugoslavia, as a team, has been awarded one bronze medal, which has been kept by Hadži himself and his family for the following 80 years. According to this source, Yugoslavia was placed third because of the semi-finals loss to the eventual champions, Uruguay.[46][47]

The former Soviet Union was to deal with a number of unique obstacles during the post-Soviet transition including political reform, economic restructuring and the redrawing of political boundaries. The discomfort associated with these changes was not felt the same in each former Soviet republic. As a general rule, states to Russia's west, such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, have fared better since the collapse of the Eastern bloc while Russia itself and countries to Russia's east experienced greater difficulties and found themselves on worse footing immediately after dissolution. A major reason that Russia's transition has been so wrenching is that the country is remaking both its Soviet-era political and economic institutions at once. In addition to institutional reforms designed to create a new political-economic system, Russia was also charged with remaking itself into a new national state following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The Italian invasion of Greece lasted from 28 October 1940 to 30 April 1941 and was part of World War II. Italian forces invaded Greece and made limited gains. But soon the Greeks counter-attacked and the Italians were repulsed and driven back at the borders with Albania. The Italians spent much of the winter stabilizing a line which left them in control of only about two-thirds of Albania. A much anticipated Italian offensive in March 1941 had as result few territorial gains. Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, intervened in April and invaded Greece after a successful invasion of Yugoslavia.

Albania served as the staging area for the Italian invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia. Albania annexed Kosovo in 1941 when Yugoslavia was dissolved, creating a Greater Albania.[112]

After the war, Tiso was executed and Slovakia once again became part of Czechoslovakia. The border with Poland was shifted back to the pre-war state. Slovakia and the Czech Republic finally separated into independent states in 1993.

The United Nations Statistics Division's scheme of sub-regions include all eight members of the SAARC as part of Southern Asia, along with Iran[68] only for statistical purposes.[69] Population Information Network (POPIN) includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as part of South Asia. Maldives, in view of its characteristics, was admitted as a member Pacific POPIN subregional network only in principle.[70] The Hirschmanâ€“Herfindahl index of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for the region includes only the original seven signatories of SAARC.[71]

The annihilation of the Bosnian National and University Library in August 1992 was led by Serbian nationalist Ratko Mladić. After firing incendiary shells on the library roof, Sarajevans attempted to save the books from the growing flames. As firefighters arrived to help, the nationalists began shooting bullets into the crowd, killing firefighters and cutting off supplies to stop the fire. As the onslaught continued, Bosnian soldiers continued their rescue efforts. The building burned. The Serbian nationalist purposefully targeted libraries and places of cultural significance in an effort to destroy the diverse history and Ottoman legacy within Bosnia. The nationalists laid waste to libraries, museums, and architectural treasures, and within just the National and University library, approximately 1.5 million volumes were lost, including almost 150,000 rare books.[31]

Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic[298] were created within the borders of Allied and Soviet occupation zones, accordingly. The rest of Europe was also divided into Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[299] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, East Germany,[300] Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Albania[301] became Soviet satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia conducted a fully independent policy, causing tension with the USSR.[302]

A federation often emerges from an initial agreement between a number of separate states. The purpose can be the will to solve mutual problems and to provide for mutual defense or to create a nation-state for an ethnicity spread over several states. The former was the case with the United States and Switzerland. However, as the histories of countries and nations vary, the federalist system of a state can be quite different from these models. Australia, for instance, is unique in that it came into existence as a nation by the democratic vote of the citizens of each state, who voted "yes" in referendums to adopt the Australian Constitution. Brazil, on the other hand, has experienced both the federal and the unitary state during its history. Some present day states of the Brazilian federation retain borders set during the Portuguese colonization (before the very existence of the Brazilian state), whereas the latest state, Tocantins, was created by the 1988 Constitution for chiefly administrative reasons.


Question: Where did the concept of democracy originate?

The origins of democracy can be traced back to early hunter-gatherer societies, where small bands of individuals, typically related by familial ties, made decisions by consensus or majority vote without a designated leader. This form of proto-democracy, which is still evident in some isolated indigenous communities today, suggests that democratic principles may naturally emerge in closely-knit groups or tribes.

According to Dieudonné [1] and Ponte,[2] the concept of a function emerged in the 17th century as a result of the development of analytic geometry and the infinitesimal calculus. Nevertheless, Medvedev suggests that the implicit concept of a function is one with an ancient lineage.[3] Ponte also sees more explicit approaches to the concept in the Middle Ages:

The term "tripartite system" is commonly ascribed to French Enlightenment political philosopher Baron de Montesquieu, although he did not use such a term. In reality he referred to "distribution" of powers. In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu described the various forms of distribution of political power among a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. Montesquieu's approach was to present and defend a form of government which was not excessively centralized in all its powers to a single monarch or similar ruler, form of government known then as "aristocracy". He based this model on the Constitution of the Roman Republic and the British constitutional system. Montesquieu took the view that the Roman Republic had powers separated so that no one could usurp complete power.[8][9][10] In the British constitutional system, Montesquieu discerned a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law.

But clearly there are wide differences between ancient conceptions of citizenship and modern ones. While the modern one still respects the idea of participation in the political process, it is usually done through "elaborate systems of political representation at a distance" such as representative democracy, and carried out under the "shadow of a permanent professional administrative apparatus."[2] Unlike the ancient patterns, modern citizenship is much more passive; action is delegated to others; citizenship is often a constraint on acting, not an impetus to act.[2] Nevertheless, citizens are aware of their obligations to authorities, and they are aware that these bonds "limits their personal political autonomy in a quite profound manner".[2] But there are disagreements that the contrast between ancient and modern versions of citizenship was that sharp; one theorist suggested that the supposedly "modern" aspects of so-called passive citizenship, such as tolerance, respect for others, and simply "minding one's own business", were present in ancient times too.[2]

These ideas reflected those of the political thinker John Locke and they quickly became popular in England.[2] It also sets out—or, in the view of its drafters, restates—certain constitutional requirements of the Crown to seek the consent of the people, as represented in Parliament.[3]

The Democratic Party is the oldest voter-based political party in the world and the oldest existing political party in the United States, tracing its heritage back to the anti-Federalists of the 1790s.[1][2][3] During the Second Party System (from 1832 to the mid-1850s) under Presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, the Democrats usually bested the opposition Whig Party by narrow margins. Both parties worked hard to build grassroots organizations and maximize the turnout of voters, which often reached 80 percent or 90 percent.[citation needed] Both parties used patronage extensively to finance their operations, which included emerging big city political machines as well as national networks of newspapers. The Democratic Party was a proponent for slave-owners across the country, urban workers and caucasian immigrants.[citation needed]

The Hellenic division between the barbarians and the Greeks contrasted in many societies the Greek-speaking culture of the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean to the surrounding non-Greek cultures. Herodotus considered the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC a conflict of Europa versus Asia (which he considered all land north and east of the Sea of Marmara, respectively). The terms "West" and "East" were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict. The anachronistic application of those terms to that division entails a stark logical contradiction, given that, when the term "West" appeared, it was used in opposition to the Greeks and Greek-speaking culture.

The British philosopher and polymath John Stuart Mill advocated meritocracy in his book, Considerations on Representative Government. His model was to give more votes to the more educated voter. His views are explained in Estlund (2003:57â€“58):

Primitive forms of propaganda have been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription (c. 515 BC) detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an early example of propaganda.[1] The Arthashastra written by Chanakya (c. 350 – 283 BC), a professor of political science at Takshashila University and a prime minister of the Maurya Empire in ancient India, discusses propaganda in detail, such as how to spread propaganda and how to apply it in warfare. His student Chandragupta Maurya (c. 340 – 293 BC), founder of the Maurya Empire, employed these methods during his rise to power.[2] The writings of Romans such as Livy (c. 59 BC – 17 AD) are considered masterpieces of pro-Roman propaganda.[citation needed] The most well-known originator of Roman historiography was Quintus Fabius Pictor (3rd century BCE). His style of writing history defending the Roman state actions and using propaganda heavily eventually became a defining characteristic of Roman historiography. Another example of early propaganda is the 12th-century work, The War of the Irish with the Foreigners, written by the Dál gCais to portray themselves as legitimate rulers of Ireland.

Although the idea of the pluralistic state theory was crystallized by English political philosophers such as G. D. H. Cole, J. N. Figgis and H. J. Laski, it has its origins in French and Italian philosophers preceding the French revolution, especially in the pamphlet of Sieyès, where the theory plays a prominent role.  Sieyè argued that state centralized sovereignty was flawed and should undergo radical transformation towards a decentralized and federated form of authority, which means the dealings of society would be organized and operated by independent associations, and therefore society would be self-governed. A comprehensive collection of writings on the topic was released under "Pluralist Theory of the State".[1]

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: DÃ©claration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), passed by France's National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, is an important document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil rights.[1] The Declaration was directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, working with General Lafayette, who introduced it.[2] Influenced also by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included in the beginning of the constitutions of both the Fourth French Republic (1946) and Fifth Republic (1958) and is still current. Inspired by the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a major impact on the development of freedom and democracy in Europe and worldwide.[3]


Question: Where did the concept of democracy originate?

The origins of democracy and the constitutional form of government can be traced back to ancient Athens around 508 B.C. In the context of ancient Greece, which was comprised of numerous city-states with varying governance structures, democracy was distinguished from other systems such as aristocracy, monarchy, and tyranny.

In Western countries, felony disenfranchisement can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman traditions: disenfranchisement was commonly imposed as part of the punishment on those convicted of "infamous" crimes, as part of their "civil death", whereby these persons would lose all rights and claim to property. Most medieval common law jurisdictions developed punishments that provided for some form of exclusion from the community for felons, ranging from execution on sight to exclusion from community processes.[5]

A star among the pleiade of progressive political philosophers during the Polish Renaissance was Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503–72), who advocated on behalf of equality for all before the law, the accountability of monarch and government to the nation, and social assistance for the weak and disadvantaged.[24] His chief work was De Republica emendanda (On Reform of the Republic, 1551–54).

Polish constitutionalism can be traced to the 13th century, when government by consensus and representation was already well established in the young Polish state. The emergence of parliamentary bodies, the sejm and sejmiki, followed.[when?] By the 17th century, Poland's legal and political tradition was characterized by: parliamentary institutions and a system of checks and balances on state power, which was itself limited by decentralization; the idea of a contractual state, embodied in texts like the Henrician Articles and the Pacta conventa; the concept of individual liberties; and the notion that the monarch owed duties to his subjects. This system, which primarily benefited the Polish nobility (szlachta), came to be known as the "nobles' democracy."[10]

In England, Simon de Montfort is remembered as one of the fathers of representative government for holding two famous parliaments.[3][4] The first, in 1258, stripped the King of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265, included ordinary citizens from the towns.[5] Later, in the 17th century, the Parliament of England pioneered some of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy culminating in the Glorious Revolution and passage of the Bill of Rights 1689.[6][7]

The concept of the party system was introduced by English scholar James Bryce in American Commonwealth (1885).

Primates often have notions of fairness and sharing, with violations punished by exclusion or banishment from social groups. In human history, prior to agriculture, more nomadic cultures had systems of punishment for behavior or resistance, including those developed by the Huns throughout Mongolia. With the development of agriculture, which led to more closely populated cities and cultures and behavior to address fears of persons taking advantage or causing harm to others, more formal systems of punishment for crimes developed, independently around the world, or based upon other cultures, including those developed in the early Babylonian laws of Hammurabi and the Hammurabic Code.

Paper currency first developed in Tang Dynasty China during the 7th century, although true paper money did not appear until the 11th century, during the Song Dynasty. The usage of paper currency later spread throughout the Mongol Empire. European explorers like Marco Polo introduced the concept in Europe during the 13th century.[11][12] Napoleon issued paper banknotes in the early 1800s.[13] Cash paper money originated as receipts for value held on account "value received", and should not be conflated with promissory "sight bills" which were issued with a promise to convert at a later date.

A third point distinguishing this charter from all others coming from the throne of a monarch is its democratic liberalism.[9] This document conferred to the residents of the Rhode Island colony the power to elect their own officers and make their own laws, so long as they were not contrary or repugnant to the laws of England. The provisions were very flexible, allowing that the laws considered "the nature and constitution of the place and people there."[10]

Examples from early modern Europe suggests early statehood was favorable for democracy.[3] But, according to Jacob Hariri, outside Europe, history shows that early statehood has led to autocracy.[4] The reasons he gives are: continuation of the original autocratic rule and absence of "institutional transplantation"[4] or European settlement. This may be because of the country's capacity to fight colonization or the presence of state infrastructure that Europeans did not need to build new institutions to rule. In all the cases, representative institutions were unable to get introduced in these countries and they sustained their autocratic rule. European colonization was varied and conditional on many factors. Countries which were rich in natural resources had an extractive and indirect rule, whereas other colonies saw European settlement.[5] Because of this settlement, these countries possibly experienced setting up of new institutions. Colonization also depended on factor endowments and settler mortality.[4]

Both Plato and Aristotle advocated meritocracy, Plato in his The Republic, arguing that the most wise should rule, and hence the rulers should be philosopher kings.[29]


Question: Who portrays Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films?

Brendan Gleeson is widely recognized for his acting prowess in a variety of roles, including a memorable turn as Alastor Moody in the Harry Potter film series from 2005 to 2010. His extensive career also includes acclaimed performances in movies like Braveheart, Mission: Impossible 2, and In Bruges, as well as a leading role in Calvary and an Emmy Award-winning portrayal of Winston Churchill in the TV movie Into the Storm.

In 2007, Courtenay appeared in two films: Flood, a disaster epic in which London is overwhelmed by floods, and The Golden Compass, an adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel, playing the part of Farder Coram. In 2008, he appeared in the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, playing William Dorrit, and the Christmas edition of The Royle Family, playing David (Senior). In March 2011, he joined the cast of Gambit, a film starring fellow RADA alumnus Alan Rickman that began filming in May. The film was released in Great Britain in November 2012. In 2012, he co-starred in Quartet, directed by Dustin Hoffman.

Sprout was portrayed by Miriam Margolyes in the film adaptation of Chamber of Secrets and Deathly Hallows â€“ Part 2.[16]

He has also appeared in several television productions, including episodes of the television series Ultimate Force and Spooks. In 2008 he took on his most prominent role, playing JLB Matekoni in the BBC/HBO-produced series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. He has guest starred in episodes of the BBC television series Luther, Ashes to Ashes, Doctor Who and Death in Paradise, as well as playing the part of the pirate Salladhor Saan in the HBO series Game of Thrones.[6]

Monaghan later starred in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy as Meriadoc Brandybuck, for which he achieved international acclaim and success. Monaghan narrated Ringers: Lord of the Fans, a documentary about The Lord of the Rings fandom. He also provided the narration for The Discovery Channel's documentary Devil's Bible in 2008. He also appeared in Soldiers of Fortune alongside Sean Bean and Christian Slater.

In 1992, Harris had a supporting role in the film Patriot Games, as a fundraiser for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). He had good roles in Unforgiven (1992), Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) and Silent Tongue (1994). He played the title role in Abraham (1994) and had the lead in Cry, the Beloved Country (1995).

William Garson Paszamant (born February 20, 1964) is an American actor.[1] He has appeared in over 75 films, and more than 300 TV episodes. He is known for playing Stanford Blatch on the HBO series Sex and the City and in the related films Sex and the City and Sex and the City 2, and for his role as Mozzie, in the USA Network series White Collar from 2009 to 2014. He appears on Hawaii Five-0 as Gerard Hirsch.

Roger Ebert called Philosopher's Stone "a classic," giving the film four out of four stars, and particularly praising the Quidditch scenes' visual effects.[88] Praise was echoed by both The Telegraph and Empire reviewers, with Alan Morrison of the latter naming it the film's "stand-out sequence".[89][90] Brian Linder of IGN.com also gave the film a positive review, but concluded that it "isn't perfect, but for me it's a nice supplement to a book series that I love".[91] Although criticising the final half-hour, Jeanne Aufmuth of Palo Alto Online stated that the film would "enchant even the most cynical of moviegoers."[92] USA Today reviewer Claudia Puig gave the film three out of four stars, especially praising the set design and Robbie Coltrane's portrayal of Hagrid, but criticised John Williams' score and concluded "ultimately many of the book's readers may wish for a more magical incarnation."[93] The sets, design, cinematography, effects and principal cast were all given praise from Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter, although he deemed John Williams' score "a great clanging, banging music box that simply will not shut up."[94] Todd McCarthy of Variety compared the film positively with Gone with the Wind and put "The script is faithful, the actors are just right, the sets, costumes, makeup and effects match and sometimes exceed anything one could imagine."[95] Jonathan Foreman of the New York Post recalled that the film was "remarkably faithful," to its literary counterpart as well as a "consistently entertaining if overlong adaptation."[96]

Jack Alexander Huston[2] (born 7 December 1982) is an English actor. He appeared as Richard Harrow in the HBO television drama series Boardwalk Empire. He also had a supporting role in the 2013 film American Hustle, and played the titular Ben-Hur in the 2016 historical drama.

Harry first meets Quirrell at the Leaky Cauldron, while being escorted by Hagrid to Diagon Alley to shop for school supplies. Quirrell is next seen at Hogwarts conversing with Snape at the start-of-term banquet, and then regularly while teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. During the school's Halloween banquet, Quirrell appears in the Great Hall to warn staff and students of a troll in the dungeons and then he faints, so he can freely make his way to the third-floor corridor where the Stone is hidden. Snape who, apparently, already suspected Quirrell was up to something, goes to the third floor in order to stop him.  In later novels, the readers learn that Dumbledore had told Snape to keep an eye on the DADA (Defence Against the Dark Arts) professor. Quirrell is unable to get to the Stone, but in the process, Snape is bitten by Fluffy.  When Harry and his friends see that Snape has been bitten, they begin to suspect Snape is after the Stone for himself.  While playing Quidditch, Harry is almost thrown off his broom by some sort of curse and he, Ron, and Hermione believe it is Snape who is responsible. They begin to suspect that Snape is trying to steal the Stone hidden in a secret chamber in Hogwarts; however, when Harry finally arrives in the chamber, he discovers that it is not Snape, but Quirrell, who is the real villain.

Harry "Buster" Merryfield[1][2][3] (27 November 1920 â€“ 23 June 1999) was an English actor best known for starring as Uncle Albert in the BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses.


Question: Who portrays Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films?

Brendan Gleeson, known for his diverse roles, portrayed the character of Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter film series, specifically in the fourth, fifth, and seventh installments. Gleeson's acting career also includes playing historical figures such as Winston Churchill in "Into the Storm," for which he received an Emmy Award, and Michael Collins in "The Treaty." Interestingly, his son Domhnall Gleeson joined the Harry Potter universe as well, taking on the role of Bill Weasley in the seventh and eighth films.

Shirley Henderson portrays Myrtle in the film versions of Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire.

Stan Shunpike is the young, pimply conductor of the Knight Bus. He speaks with a Cockney accent and talks to Harry as he travels to London in the first part of Prisoner of Azkaban. He also appears briefly in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the Quidditch World Cup, boasting to a group of Veela, the Bulgarian team's official mascot, of his ambitious plans to become the next Minister of Magic. In Order of the Phoenix, he conducts the Knight Bus when Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny, Lupin, and Tonks take it to return to Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays. Stan mentions that he does not believe the media rumours about Harry being insane, though Harry interprets Stan's actions as not caring how insane someone is as long as he/she is famous enough to get into the papers.

Petunia has more knowledge of the wizarding world than she is initially willing to admit. After the Dementors attack Harry and Dudley, Petunia states that she knows Dementors guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. When Harry and the rest of her family look at her strangely, she explains that she heard "that awful boy" telling Lily about them years ago. Harry assumes that the "awful boy" was his father, James, but in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, he learns via flashback memories that it was actually Severus Snape, who knew both Lily and Petunia when they were children. On one occasion, Petunia, but mostly her husband, almost throws Harry out of their house, but when she receives a Howler from Albus Dumbledore, she decides not to send the boy away due to the agreement she had made with Dumbledore (although she covers by claiming that her decision is based on what the neighbors might think if the Dursleys threw Harry out).

Many of the cast members have had roles in the Star Trek franchise: Patrick Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Whoopi Goldberg played Guinan, Leonard Nimoy played Mr. Spock, Christopher Lloyd played Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Ed Begley, Jr. played Henry Starling in a two-part episode of Star Trek: Voyager, George Hearn played Dr. Berel in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and B.J. Ward played numerous characters in Star Trek computer games, as did Jim Cummings. Composer James Horner was also the composer for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Frank Welker voiced Spock's screams in Star Trek III and the alien creature in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Nothing Human". Robert Picardo played The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager.

Actress Fiona Shaw portrays Petunia in the films, with Ariella Paradise playing her as a child.

In the Harry Potter books, non-magical people are often portrayed as foolish, sometimes befuddled characters, who are completely ignorant of the Wizarding world that exists in their midst. If, by unfortunate means, non-magical people do happen to observe the working of magic, the Ministry of Magic sends Obliviators to cast Memory Charms upon them causing them to forget the event.

The Death Eaters kill Scrimgeour and replace him with Pius Thicknesse. The Ministry begins arresting and persecuting Muggle-born witches and wizards. Before the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley kiss passionately until George interrupts them. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, however, Death Eaters attack. Kingsley Shacklebolt's patronus charm forewarns the wedding party, and most escape. Harry, Hermione, and Ron disapparate to London, where they are attacked in a diner by Death Eaters. The trio are forced to seek refuge at 12 Grimmauld Place. While there, they discover that the "R.A.B." from the fake Horcrux locket is Regulus Arcturus Black, the younger brother of Sirius Black. Kreacher, the Black's house elf, tells them that Mundungus Fletcher broke in and stole many items from the house including the real locket. Kreacher and Dobby apprehend Fletcher, who reveals that the locket is in the possession of Dolores Umbridge. Using Polyjuice Potion, the trio infiltrate the Ministry and find the locket around Umbridge's neck. Harry stuns Umbridge and Hermione retrieves the locket. The trio escape from their pursuers by apparating in the wilderness but Ron is injured and cannot apparate again until he recovers.

Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also playable in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Ralph Fiennes's portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers. Voldemort also appears in The Lego Batman Movie voiced by Eddie Izzard as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that the Joker recruits to take over Gotham City.

Albus Severus Potter is Harry and Ginny's second-born child. He is said to look much like Harry and to be the only one of his siblings to have inherited Lily Potter's green eyes. He is named after Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape, and would be eleven at the time of the epilogue. Albus is played by Arthur Bowen in Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.


Question: Who was the first to record using an electric guitar?

George Warren Barnes, a swing jazz guitarist, was the first musician to play the electric guitar in 1931. On March 1, 1938, he made history by recording the first commercial track featuring an electric guitar in sessions with Big Bill Broonzy.

A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including a slightly earlier one which is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, but as of May 2014 they have not yet been played by this means. These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb, not preserved, has been called the first instance of recorded verse.[25] On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early sound-on-film newsreel camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording.[26] Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th century media legends such as P. T. Barnum and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth are amongst the earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present.[27][28]

The recording session took place on October 6, 1951, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Besides Brashaw, Prysock, and Paul, the other participants were: Leslie Ayers and Lester Bass on trumpets; Andrew Penn on trombone; Ted "Snooky" Holbert on alto and baritone sax; Rufus Gore on tenor saxes; Jimmy Robinson on piano; and Clarence Mack on bass.[6]  King Records issued the song on both ten-inch 78 rpm and seven-inch 45 rpm records in late 1951.  Billboard magazine reviewed the release and commented using jump parlance: "The singer comes thru [sic] with a great vocal on a rockin' novelty, with some solid chorus and ork [orchestra a.k.a. swing band] backing.  Tune builds all the way.  Platter could catch a lot of change."[7]  However, it did not appear on the charts of the nation's most popular R&B songs, such as those compiled by Billboard.  Although Bradshaw had five other records that reached the R&B top ten,[8] "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" remains his best-known recording and continues to be popular with Shag dancers (a type of swing dance) on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.[1]

Wrixon left Thin Lizzy after a few months, and the remaining trio later secured a contract with Decca Records.[5] As lead guitarist, Bell played on Thin Lizzy's first three albums Thin Lizzy, Shades of a Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds of the Western World, as well as their hit single "Whiskey in the Jar". He co-wrote a number of songs with Lynott and Downey, including "The Rocker" which became a live favourite throughout the band's career.[2] He also composed one song on his own, "Ray Gun", from their first album, Thin Lizzy.[6]

Dickson and his then lead assistant, Charles Brown, made halting progress at first. Edison's original idea involved recording pinpoint photographs, 1/32 of an inch wide, directly on to a cylinder (also referred to as a "drum"); the cylinder, made of an opaque material for positive images or of glass for negatives, was coated in collodion to provide a photographic base.[7] An audio cylinder would provide synchronized sound, while the rotating images, hardly operatic in scale, were viewed through a microscope-like tube. When tests were made with images expanded to a mere 1/8 of an inch in width, the coarseness of the silver bromide emulsion used on the cylinder became unacceptably apparent. Around June 1889, the lab began working with sensitized celluloid sheets, supplied by John Carbutt, that could be wrapped around the cylinder, providing a far superior base for the recording of photographs.[8] The first film made for the Kinetoscope, and apparently the first motion picture ever produced on photographic film in the United States, may have been shot at this time (there is an unresolved debate over whether it was made in June 1889 or November 1890); known as Monkeyshines, No. 1, it shows an employee of the lab in an apparently tongue-in-cheek display of physical dexterity.[9] Attempts at synchronizing sound were soon left behind, while Dickson would also experiment with disc-based exhibition designs.[10]

Meant to be a humorous song, as evidenced by its ironic title and chorus, the composition took on additional poignancy following Williams' death. In fact, the urban legend that the song was #1 at the time of his demise is not far from the truth, as he did in fact die in the early hours of January 1953. Williams recorded the song at Castle Studio in Nashville on June 13, 1952 with backing provided by Jerry Rivers (fiddle), Don Helms (steel guitar), Chet Atkins (lead guitar), Chuck Wright (bass) and probably Ernie Newton (bass).[1] Atkins recalled later, "We recorded 'I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive' and after each take, he'd sit down in a chair. I remember thinking, 'Hoss, you're not jivin',' because he was so weak that all he could do was just sing a few lines, and then just fall in the chair."[2]

That month 2ADD (renamed WRUC in 1947), aired what is believed to be the first public entertainment broadcast in the United States, a series of Thursday night concerts initially heard within a 100-mile (160 km) radius and later for a 1,000-mile (1,600 km) radius. In November 1920, it aired the first broadcast of a sporting event.[38][39] At 9 pm on August 27, 1920, Sociedad Radio Argentina aired a live performance of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal from the Coliseo Theater in downtown Buenos Aires. Only about twenty homes in the city had receivers to tune in this radio program. Meanwhile, regular entertainment broadcasts commenced in 1922 from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle, England.

Over several years starting in 1894 the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi built the first complete, commercially successful wireless telegraphy system based on airborne Hertzian waves (radio transmission).[12] Marconi demonstrated application of radio in military and marine communications and started a company for the development and propagation of radio communication services and equipment.

Direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects such as tuning forks had been made by English physician Thomas Young in 1807,[7] but the first known device for recording airborne speech, music and other sounds is the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by French typesetter and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. In this device, sound waves travelling through the air vibrated a parchment diaphragm which was linked to a bristle, and the bristle traced a line through a thin coating of soot on a sheet of paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder. The sound vibrations were recorded as undulations or other irregularities in the traced line. Scott's phonautograph was intended purely for the visual study and analysis of the tracings. Reproduction of the recorded sound was not possible with the original phonautograph.[8]

Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips â€“ a potential source of confusion both then and now.

The early history of radio is the history of technology that produce and use radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and inventions in what became radio.[1] Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy".[1] Later radio history increasingly involves matters of broadcasting.