User:Parcly Taxel/sandbox
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13 May TFAs[edit]
Louis Riel was a Canadian politician and leader of the Métis people of western Canada. He led two resistance movements against the Canadian government that sought to preserve Métis rights and culture as their homelands came under the Canadian sphere of influence. During the first, the Red River Rebellion, the provisional government established by Riel ultimately negotiated the terms under which the modern province of Manitoba entered the Canadian Confederation. He was forced into exile as a result of the controversial execution of Thomas Scott, but in 1884 he returned to what is now the province of Saskatchewan to participate in the North-West Rebellion of 1885. It ended in his arrest, trial and eventual execution for treason. Riel was viewed sympathetically in francophone regions of Canada, and his execution has had a lasting influence on relations between the province of Quebec and English-speaking Canada. Whether he is seen as a de facto Father of Confederation or as a traitor, he remains one of the most complex, controversial and ultimately tragic figures in the history of Canada.
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Since the loosening of government controls over society in the early 1980s, prostitution in the People's Republic of China has not only reappeared, but can now be found throughout urban and rural areas. In spite of government efforts, prostitution has now developed to the extent that it comprises an industry, one that involves a great number of people and produces a considerable economic output. Prostitution has also become associated with a number of problems, including organised crime, government corruption and sexually transmitted diseases. Prostitution-related activities in mainland China are characterised by diverse types, venues and prices. Sellers of sex come from a broad range of social backgrounds. While the PRC government has always taken a hard line on organisers of prostitution, it has vacillated in its legal treatment of the prostitute herself, treating prostitution sometimes as a crime and sometimes as misconduct. Despite lobbying by international NGOs and overseas commentators, there is not much support for legalisation of the sex sector by the public, social organisations or the government of the PRC. (continued...)
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The Baby Gender Mentor test is a blood test designed to determine if a pregnant mother is carrying a boy or a girl. The test is made by Acu-Gen Biolab, Inc., an American biotech company in Lowell, Massachusetts, and is marketed to detect the sex of a fetus as early as five weeks after conception. According to Acu-Gen, the test looks for markers on the Y chromosome and the accuracy of the test exceeds that of conventional methods, such as ultrasonography, amniocentesis, or chorionic villus sampling techniques, and that the test offers "unsurpassed accuracy, unrivaled earliness, and uncompromised promptness". The company has so far chosen not to release details of how the test works or proof of its accuracy, as they consider this information proprietary. Since the test made a prominent media debut on 17 June 2005 on the Today Show, it has been the center of several controversies. Customers and scientists question the accuracy of the test; and legal action is being pursued against Acu-Gen as well as a major supplier of the test kit. Concerns have also been raised by bioethicists that use of the test could lead to practices such as sex selection and Acu-Gen has allegedly used the test to illegally offer medical diagnoses. (more...)
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Nahuatl is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan, or Nahuan, branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, all of which are indigenous to Mesoamerica and are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua people, mostly in Central Mexico. Nahuatl has been spoken in Central Mexico since at least the 7th century AD. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the early 16th century it was the language of the Aztecs, who dominated central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology. The expansion and influence of the Aztec Empire led to the dialect spoken by the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan becoming a prestige language in Mesoamerica in this period. With the introduction of the Latin alphabet, Nahuatl also became a literary language and many chronicles, grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan dialect has been labeled Classical Nahuatl and is among the most-studied and best-documented languages of the Americas. Today, Nahuan dialects are spoken in scattered communities mostly in rural areas. There are considerable differences between dialects and some are mutually unintelligible. No modern dialects are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. (more...)
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Triptych, May–June 1973 is a triptych completed in 1973 by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon. The oil-on-canvas work was painted in memory of Bacon's lover George Dyer, who committed suicide on the eve of the artist's retrospective at Paris's Grand Palais in October 1971. The triptych is a portrait of the moments before Dyer's death. Bacon was preoccupied by Dyer's suicide in his last twenty years, during which time he painted a number of similarly themed works. He admitted to friends that he never fully recovered from the event, and described painting the triptych as an exorcism of his feelings of loss and guilt. The work is stylistically more static and monumental than Bacon's earlier triptychs. It has been described as one of his "supreme achievements", and is generally viewed as his most intense and tragic canvas. Of the three "Black Triptychs" that Bacon created to confront Dyer's death, Triptych, May–June 1973 is generally regarded as the most accomplished. In 2006, The Daily Telegraph's art critic Sarah Crompton wrote that "emotion seeps into each panel of this giant canvas…the sheer power and control of Bacon's brushwork take the breath away". In 1989, the work sold at Sotheby's for US$6,270,000, the highest price then paid for a Bacon work. (more...)
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The Historian is the 2005 debut novel of American author Elizabeth Kostova. The plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad III the Impaler (pictured) and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula. Kostova's father told her stories about Dracula when she was a child, and later in life she was inspired to turn the experience into a novel. She worked on the book for ten years and then sold it within a few months to Little, Brown, and Company, which bought it for a remarkable US$2 million. The Historian has been described as a combination of genres, including Gothic novel, adventure novel, detective fiction, travelogue, postmodern historical novel, epistolary epic, and historical thriller. It is concerned with history's role in society and representation in books, as well as the nature of good and evil. The evils brought about by religious conflict are a particular theme, and the novel explores the relationship between the Christian West and the Islamic East. Little, Brown, and Company heavily promoted the book and it became the first debut novel to become number one on The New York Times bestseller list in its first week on sale. As of 2005, it was the fastest-selling hardback debut novel in US history. Kostova received the 2006 Book Sense award for Best Adult Fiction and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year. Sony has bought the film rights and, as of 2007, were planning an adaptation. (more...)
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The Battle of Khafji was the first major ground engagement of the Gulf War. It took place in and around the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji, from 29 January to 1 February 1991 and marked the culmination of the Coalition's air campaign over Kuwait and Iraq, which had begun on 17 January 1991. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered 1st and 5th Mechanized Divisions and 3rd Armored Division to conduct a multi-pronged invasion from Southern Kuwait toward Khafji, engaging American, Saudi and Qatari forces along the coastline. These divisions, which had been heavily damaged by Coalition aircraft in the preceding days, attacked on 29 January. Most of their attacks were fought off by U.S. Marines as well as U.S. Army Rangers and Coalition aircraft, but one of the Iraqi columns occupied Khafji on the night of 29–30 January. Between 30 January and 1 February, two Saudi Arabian National Guard battalions and two Qatari tank companies attempted to retake control of the city, aided by Coalition aircraft and American artillery. By 1 February, the city had been recaptured. The battle serves as a modern demonstration that air power can halt and defeat a major ground operation. It was also a major test of the Saudi and Qatari armies. (more...)
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Limbo is a puzzle-platform video game and the premiere title of independent Danish game developer Playdead. The game was released in July 2010 as a platform-exclusive title on Xbox Live Arcade, and was later ported to the PlayStation Network and Microsoft Windows via Steam. Limbo is a 2D sidescroller, incorporating the physics system Box2D to govern environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as the boy searches for his sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play "trial and death", and used visually gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions. The game is presented primarily in monochromatic black-and-white tones, using lighting, film grain effects and minimal ambient sounds to create an eerie atmosphere often associated with the horror genre. Limbo received positive reviews, but its minimal story polarised critics. A common point of criticism from reviewers was that the high cost of the game relative to its short length might deter players from purchasing the title. The title was the third-highest selling game on the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2010, generating around $7.5 million in revenue. The title won several awards from industry groups after its release, and was named one of the top games of 2010 by several publications. (more...)
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The State Trunkline Highway System in Michigan consists of all the state highways, including those designated as Interstate, United States, or State Trunkline highways. Maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation, the system comprises 9,716 miles (15,636 km) of trunklines in all 83 counties of the state. Its components range in scale from 10-lane urban freeways to two-lane rural undivided highways to a non-motorized highway on Mackinac Island, where cars are forbidden. The longest highway is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long, while the shortest is about three-quarters of a mile (about 1.2 km). A constitutional prohibition on state involvement in roads was removed in the early 20th century and on May 13, 1913, the State Reward Trunk Line Highways Act was passed, creating the system. Highway numbers were first posted on signs in 1919, making Michigan the second state to do so. Michigan's first freeways were built during the 1940s. Construction on Michigan's Interstates started in the late 1950s and continued until 1992. Few additional freeways have been built since 1992, and in the early years of the 21st century, projects are underway to bypass cities with new highways. (Full article...)
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Millennium Force is a steel roller coaster at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. Completed in 2000, it has broken and helped to break ten world records. It was also the first Giga Coaster (any complete circuit roller coaster that exceeds 300 feet (91 m) in height) in the world. It was briefly the tallest and fastest complete circuit roller coaster in the world, before being surpassed by Steel Dragon 2000 in August 2000. The ride is also the second-longest roller coaster in North America after The Beast at Kings Island, and was the first roller coaster to use a cable lift system, rather than a traditional chain lift. The coaster has a 310 ft (94 m), 45 degree inclined lift hill with a 300 ft (91 m) drop, and features two tunnels, three overbanked turns, and four hills. It has a top speed of about 93 mph (150 km/h). Since 2001, Millennium Force has been voted the number one steel roller coaster in the world eight times in Amusement Today's Golden Ticket Awards, and has never been ranked lower than number two. Although it is no longer the tallest or fastest roller coaster at Cedar Point, it is still one of the tallest and fastest in the world. (Full article...)
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Blackrock is a 1997 Australian drama film directed by Steven Vidler and written by Nick Enright. In Blackrock, a fictional beachside working-class suburb, a young surfer witnesses his friends raping a girl. When she is found murdered the next day, he is torn between revealing what he saw and protecting his friends. Filming locations included Stockton, New South Wales, where a girl named Leigh Leigh was murdered in 1989. While the film was never marketed as the story of her death, many viewers incorrectly believed it to be a factual account of the crime. Her family objected to what they saw as a fictionalisation of her murder, and residents of Stockton opposed the decision to shoot scenes there. The film received generally positive critical reviews in Australia, where it was nominated for five AACTA Awards and won two AWGIE Awards, though it received mixed reviews elsewhere. Adapted from Enright's play of the same name, the film stars Laurence Breuls, Simon Lyndon and Linda Cropper, and features the first credited film performance of Heath Ledger. (Full article...)
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Under head coach Ron Rivera, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Founder Jerry Richardson and his family have a controlling interest in the club. The team plays at Bank of America Stadium, one of the few stadiums owned by its NFL team. The Panthers were announced as the league's 29th franchise in 1993. The team played well in their first two years, finishing 7–9 in 1995 (an all-time best for an NFL expansion team's first season) and 12–4 the following year, and winning the NFC West championship. In the 2003 season they reached Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing to the New England Patriots. After recording a playoff appearance in 2005, they won NFC South division championships in the 2008, 2013 and 2014 seasons. In the 2015 season, they defeated the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals in the playoffs to advance to Super Bowl 50, where they lost to the Denver Broncos. (Full article...)
Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre (1804–1875) was an army officer, politician, abolitionist and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. For most of the 1820s, he was involved in the struggle for Brazilian independence and fought in the Cisplatine War. From 1835 to 1845, his native province of Rio Grande do Sul was engulfed in a secessionist rebellion, the Ragamuffin War, which he helped to suppress. In 1852, he led an army division during the Platine War, invading the Argentine Confederation and overthrowing its dictator. Porto Alegre was elected to the legislature of Rio Grande do Sul, and founded the provincial Progressive-Liberal Party—a coalition of Liberals like himself and some members of the Conservative Party. He later entered the lower house of the Brazilian parliament and was briefly Minister of War. After returning to the military as one of the chief Brazilian commanders during the Paraguayan War (1864), he became an active advocate for the abolition of slavery and a patron in the fields of literature and science. (Full article...)
Banksia aculeata, the prickly banksia, is a plant of the family Proteaceae native to the Stirling Range in the southwest of Western Australia. A bushy shrub up to 2 m (7 ft) tall, it has fissured grey bark on its trunk and branches, and dense foliage and leaves with very prickly serrated margins. Its unusual pinkish, pendent (hanging) flower spikes, known as inflorescences, are generally hidden in the foliage and appear during the early summer. Unlike many other banksia species, it does not have a woody base, or lignotuber. Although it was collected in the 1840s by the naturalist James Drummond, it was not formally described until 1981, in Alex George's monograph of the genus. A rare plant, B. aculeata is found in gravelly soils in elevated areas. Native to a habitat burnt by periodic bushfires, it is killed by fire and regenerates from seed afterwards. In contrast to other Western Australian banksias, it appears to have some resistance to Phytophthora cinnamomi, a soil-borne water mould. (Full article...)
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Interstate 94 (I-94) in Michigan is a part of the U.S. Interstate Highway System that runs east from the Indiana state line near Lake Michigan through the southern Lower Peninsula to Detroit, then northeast to Port Huron. I-94 extends west to Billings, Montana. In Michigan, it is a state trunkline highway serving Benton Harbor, St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and The Thumb, terminating on the Blue Water Bridge at the Canadian border. By 1960, I-94 was completed from New Buffalo to Detroit, and most of the rest of the route was completed in the 1960s. The highway has one auxiliary route in Michigan, I-194 in Battle Creek, and eight business routes. In 1987, a plane crashed on the freeway during take-off from the airport in Detroit. The routing of I-94 contains the first full freeway-to-freeway interchange in the United States, and comprises the first complete border-to-border toll-free freeway in a U.S. state. (Full article...)
Part of the Interstate Highways in Michigan featured topic.
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"These Are the Voyages..." is the series finale of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise. The episode, which first aired on the UPN network on May 13, 2005, is a frame story, where the 22nd-century events of Star Trek: Enterprise are recreated on a 24th-century holodeck on Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Featuring guest stars Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Jeffrey Combs, the episode has Commander William Riker grappling with making a difficult admission to his commanding officer about a cover-up. Riker turns for guidance to the simulated events of the year 2161, when the crew of Enterprise travels home to Earth for the formation of the United Federation of Planets and Commander Trip Tucker, played by Connor Trinneer (pictured), saves the captain's life. UPN and Paramount had announced in February 2005 that the fourth season would be the show's last. Reaction to the series finale was negative, although it attracted 3.8 million viewers. (Full article...)