No.20305
Room pic I took twenty mins ago
No.20472
A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrology and are of significant concern in agriculture, civil engineering and public health.
Flooding may occur as an overflow of water from water bodies, such as a river, lake, or ocean, in which the water overtops or breaks levees, resulting in some of that water escaping its usual boundaries, or it may occur due to an accumulation of rainwater on saturated ground in an areal flood. While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, these changes in size are unlikely to be considered significant unless they flood property or drown domestic animals.
Floods can also occur in rivers when the flow rate exceeds the capacity of the river channel, particularly at bends or meanders in the waterway. Floods often cause damage to homes and businesses if they are in the natural flood plains of rivers. While riverine flood damage can be eliminated by moving away from rivers and other bodies of water, people have traditionally lived and worked by rivers because the land is usually flat and fertile and because rivers provide easy travel and access to commerce and industry.
Some floods develop slowly, while others can develop in just a few minutes and without visible signs of rain. Additionally, floods can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, affecting entire river basins.
No.20473
Babi Yar (Ukrainian: Бабин Яр, Babyn Yar; Russian: Бабий Яр, Babiy Yar) is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by German forces during their campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, killing approximately 33,771 Jews. The decision to kill all the Jews in Kyiv was made by the military governor Generalmajor Kurt Eberhard, the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and the Einsatzgruppe C Commander Otto Rasch. Sonderkommando 4a soldiers, along with the aid of the SD and SS Police Battalions with the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police backed by the Wehrmacht carried out the orders.
The massacre was the largest mass killing under the auspices of the Nazi regime and its collaborators during its campaign against the Soviet Union and has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust" to that particular date, and surpassed overall only by the later 1941 Odessa massacre of more than 50,000 Jews in October 1941 (committed by German and Romanian troops) and by Aktion Erntefest of November 1943 in occupied Poland with 42,000–43,000 victims.
Victims of other massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists, Ukrainian nationalists and Roma. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 people were killed at Babi Yar during the German occupation.
No.20475
Tsvety (in English The Flowers, Russian: Цветы, "flowers") is a Soviet and Russian rock band that, according to Itogi magazine, "started all Russian alternative culture". It was one of the first bands to introduce rock music to the Soviet show business. The Flowers were established in 1969 by guitar player and songwriter Stas Namin. In 1973 The Flowers released flexis with producing company Melodiya; overall seven million copies were sold. After becoming a major hit in the USSR, in 1974 the band went on its first professional tour; but in 1975 the band dissolved as a result of a conflict with the Philharmonic Society, and it was liquidated by a decree of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, its name was banned. It was only in 1977 that the band was resurrected under the new name The Stas Namin Group, in 1978 it went on tour still being banned by all central mass media outlets. In 1980, during the years of the Olympic Thaw, the band managed to release a solo album with Melodiya – Hymn to the Sun – and participate in a TV show, after that they were banned once again. The period of bans and persecution that lasted to 1986 ended with Perestroika when the life of the band got much easier: with their returned name The Flowers went on tour, performed abroad in the Western countries and completed a world tour in four years. In 1990 the band ceased its activities and, as a matter of fact, did not exist for the next almost ten years.
By the end of 80-s the Soviet monopolist record label Melodiya sold over sixty million copies of The Flowers records, but neither Stas Namin, nor the band members were paid out of this record sales. Namin wrote most of The Flowers songs. Many of them were banned, but those which were released became national hits. His song Happiness was a hit No. 1 for three years in 80-s, and even now it remains one of the most beloved songs for Russia and former Soviet Union. Over fifty famous musicians started their careers with The Flowers. Established and produced by Stas Namin in 1987, the Gorky Park rock-band was also formed of The Flowers members.
After the re-union in 1999 The Flowers celebrated their 30th Anniversary with a big concert in Moscow, but did not return to show business. They participated in the productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar (Russian versions), and other projects at The Stas Namin Music and Drama Theater. In 2009 the band celebrated its 40th Anniversary with a grand show with special guest-stars, and actively started the new creative life. The Flowers recorded two albums "The Best of Flowers" at the Abbey Road studios. In 2013 they released two albums with the brand new songs – Homo Sapience and Flower Power. In autumn 2014 the Flowers are planning the 45th Anniversary tour that includes 45 cities in Russia, and in 2015 – a world tour. That will be a farewell tour of the legendary rock-band.
No.20476
Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (c.1603–1607). The wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes queen of Scotland. She dies off-stage in the last act, an apparent suicide.
According to some genealogists, King Duncan's wife was Lady Macbeth's grandmother where Duncan's wife had a stronger claim to the throne than Lady Macbeth. It was this that incited her jealousy and hatred of Duncan.
The character's origins lie in the accounts of Kings Duff and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of Britain familiar to Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth appears to be a composite of two separate and distinct personages in Holinshed's work: Donwald's nagging, murderous wife in the account of King Duff and Macbeth's ambitious wife, Gruoch of Scotland, in the account of King Duncan.
Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in the fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language. The report of her death late in the fifth act provides the inspiration for Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech.
Analysts see in the character of Lady Macbeth the conflict between femininity and masculinity as they are impressed in cultural norms. Lady Macbeth suppresses her instincts toward compassion, motherhood, and fragility — associated with femininity — in favour of ambition, ruthlessness, and the singleminded pursuit of power. This conflict colours the entire drama and sheds light on gender-based preconceptions from Shakespearean England to the present.
The role has attracted countless notable actors over the centuries, including Sarah Siddons, Charlotte Melmoth, Helen Faucit, Ellen Terry, Jeanette Nolan, Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Vivien Merchant, Glenda Jackson, Francesca Annis, Judith Anderson, Dame Judi Dench, Renee O'Connor, Keeley Hawes, Alex Kingston and Marion Cotillard and Hannah Taylor-Gordon.
No.20477
Red coat (also spelled as "redcoat") or scarlet tunic is a military garment used widely, though not exclusively worn, by most regiments of the British Army, Royal Marines, and some colonial units within the British Empire, from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The scarlet tunic continues to be used into the 21st century, with several armed forces of the Commonwealth of Nations adopting them as their full dress and mess dress uniforms.
From the mid-17th century to the 19th century, the uniform of most British soldiers (apart from artillery, rifles and light cavalry) included a madder red coat or coatee. From 1873 onwards, the more vivid shade of scarlet was adopted for all ranks, having previously been worn only by officers, sergeants and all ranks of some cavalry regiments.
No.20479
Yume Nikki (ゆめにっき, lit. Dream Diary) is a surreal adventure game by pseudonymous Japanese developer Kikiyama. In the game, players explore the dreams of a hikikomori named Madotsuki, where they encounter a number of surrealistic horror creatures and locations. The game was created using RPG Maker 2003, but has few elements commonly associated with role-playing games, such as battle, leveling up, and quests. The game's primary objective is to collect items called "effects" that can help progress to new areas and discover secrets.
The initial version was released as a free online download in June 2004 with subsequent updates over time, the last occurring in 2007. It was later released on Steam by publisher Playism in January 2018. A 3D reboot, Yume Nikki: Dream Diary, was released the following month. In addition, various fangames inspired by it have also been released.
No.20482
Argentina (Spanish: [aɾxenˈtina]), officially the Argentine Republic[A] (Spanish: República Argentina), is a country located mostly in the southern half of South America. Sharing the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, the country is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2 (1,073,500 sq mi), Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas, the second largest in South America after Brazil, and the largest Spanish-speaking nation. The sovereign state is subdivided into twenty-three provinces (Spanish: provincias, singular provincia) and one autonomous city (ciudad autónoma), Buenos Aires, which is the federal capital of the nation (Spanish: Capital Federal) as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas), and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.
The earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The Inca Empire expanded to the northwest of the country in Pre-Columbian times. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century. Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The declaration and fight for independence (1810–1818) was followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1861, culminating in the country's reorganization as a federation of provinces with Buenos Aires as its capital city. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several waves of European immigration, mainly Italians and Spaniards, radically reshaping its cultural and demographic outlook; 62.5% of the population has full or partial Italian ancestry, and the Argentine culture has significant connections to the Italian culture. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest nation in the world by the early 20th century.
Following the Great Depression in the 1930s, Argentina descended into political instability and economic decline that pushed it back into underdevelopment, though it remained among the fifteen richest countries for several decades. Following the death of President Juan Perón in 1974, his widow, Isabel Martínez de Perón, ascended to the presidency. She was overthrown in 1976 by a U.S.-backed coup which installed a right-wing military dictatorship. The military government persecuted and murdered numerous political critics, activists, and leftists in the Dirty War, a period of state terrorism that lasted until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as President in 1983. Several of the junta's leaders were later convicted of their crimes and sentenced to imprisonment.
Argentina is a developing country and ranks 48th on the Human Development Index, the second highest in Latin America after Chile. It is a regional power in Latin America and retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs. Argentina maintains the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America, and is a member of G-15 and G-20. It is also a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Mercosur, Union of South American Nations, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Organization of Ibero-American States.