1.
List of '2004 in' articles
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February 26 – Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. February 29 – Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is overthrown in a coup détat, march 2 – A series of bombings occur in Karbala, Iraq, killing over 140 Shia Muslims commemorating the Day of Ashura. March 11 – Coordinated bombs explode at a Cercanías train station in Madrid, Spain, march 28 – Hurricane Catarina, the first ever recorded South Atlantic tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Santa Catarina, Brazil. March 29 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia are admitted to NATO, april 8 – The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups, in order to put a pause on the War in Darfur. April 17 – Israeli helicopters fire missiles at a convoy of vehicles in the Gaza Strip, april 24 – Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to reunite the island, take place in both the Greek-controlled and the Turkish-controlled parts. Although the Turkish Cypriots vote in favour, the Greek Cypriots reject the proposal, june 21 – In Mojave, California, SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. June 28 – The U. S. -led coalition occupying Iraq transfers sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government, june 30 – Preliminary hearings begin in Iraq in the trial of former president Saddam Hussein, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. July 1 – The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft arrives at Saturn, august 3 – NASAs MESSENGER spacecraft is launched, with its primary mission being the study of Mercury. August 13–29 – The 2004 Summer Olympics are held in Athens, august 22 – Armed robbers steal Edvard Munchs The Scream, Madonna, and other paintings from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. September 1 – Chechen rebels take 1,128 people hostage, mostly children, at a school in Beslan, the crisis ends when Russian security forces storm the building, resulting in more than 330 people being killed. September 2 – The United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 1559, calling for the removal of all troops from Lebanon. October 8 – Suicide bombers detonate two bombs at the Red Sea resort of Taba, Egypt, killing over 30 people, october 19 – A team of explorers reach the bottom of Krubera Cave, the worlds deepest cave, with a depth of 2,080 meters. October 29 – European heads of state sign in Rome the Treaty and Final Act, november 13 – The European Space Agency probe SMART-1 arrives at the Moon, becoming the first European satellite to travel to and orbit it. November 16 – NASAs hypersonic Scramjet breaks a record by reaching a velocity of about 7,000 mph in an experimental flight. It obtains a speed of Mach 9.6, almost 10 times the speed of sound, november 22 – The Orange Revolution begins following a disputed presidential election in Ukraine where Viktor Yanukovych won against Viktor Yushchenko amid accusations of electoral fraud. A revote results in Yushchenko being declared the winner, December 14 – The worlds tallest bridge, the Millau Viaduct over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains, France, is officially opened. December 21 – Iraqi insurgents attack a U. S. military base in the city of Mosul, December 26 – The 9. 1–9.3 Mw Indian Ocean earthquake shakes northern Sumatra with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX. One of the largest observed tsunamis follows, affecting areas of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh
List of '2004 in' articles
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Cyclone Gafilo
List of '2004 in' articles
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The
Olympic flame during the
Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics
List of '2004 in' articles
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The
tsunami caused by the December 26, 2004 earthquake strikes
Ao Nang, Thailand.
List of '2004 in' articles
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Joan Aiken
2.
List of '2005 in' articles
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2005 was designated as, International Year for Sport and Physical Education International Year of Microcredit The year 2005 was the end of the International Decade of the Worlds Indigenous People. January 12 – Deep Impact is launched from Cape Canaveral with the purpose of studying the comet Tempel 1, january 14 – The Huygens spacecraft lands on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. February 10 – North Korea announces that it possesses nuclear weapons as a protection against the hostility it feels from the United States, february 14 – Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri is assassinated, along with 21 others, by a suicide bomber in Beirut. February 16 – The Kyoto Protocol officially goes into effect, march 14 – The Peoples Republic of China ratifies an anti-secession law, aimed at preventing Taiwan from declaring independence. March 24 – The President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev is overthrown following mass anti-government demonstrations, march 28 – The 8.6 Mw Nias–Simeulue earthquake shakes northern Sumatra with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI, leaving 915–1,314 people dead and 340–1,146 injured. April 2 – Pope John Paul II dies, over 4 million people travel to the Vatican to mourn him, Pope Benedict XVI succeeds him on April 19, becoming the 265th pope. April 9 – Charles, Prince of Wales marries Camilla Parker Bowles in a ceremony at Windsors Guildhall. Camilla acquires the title Duchess of Cornwall, April 26 – Syria withdraws the last of its military garrison from Lebanon, ending its 29-year military occupation of the country. April 27 – The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, may 13 – Uzbek Interior Ministry and National Security Service troops massacre at least 200 protesters in the city of Andijan. May 15 – A passenger ferry capsizes and sinks in strong winds in the Bura Gauranga River in Bangladesh, june 21 – A Volna booster rocket carrying the first light sail spacecraft fails 83 seconds after its launch, destroying the spacecraft. June 28 – Three U. S. Navy SEALs and 16 American Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed in a firefight in Afghanistan. Only one SEAL survives the battle, july 2 – Live 8, a set of 10 simultaneous concerts, takes place throughout the world, raising interest in the Make Poverty History campaign. July 6 – The European Parliament rejects the Proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in its second reading, july 7 – Four coordinated suicide bombings rock central London, killing 52 people and injuring over 700. July 23 – A series of hit the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. July 28 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army announces an end to the campaign it has pursued since 1969. August 12 – The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is launched from Cape Canaveral, august 16 – West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashes into a mountain in Venezuela, killing 160 passengers. August 18 – Peace Mission 2005, the first joint China–Russia military exercise, august 29 – Hurricane Katrina makes landfall along the U. S. Gulf Coast, causing severe damage and killing over a thousand people and dealing an estimated $108 billion in damage. August 31 – A stampede at the Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad, Iraq, september 7 – Egypt holds its first ever multi-party presidential election, which is marred with allegations of fraud
List of '2005 in' articles
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Shirley Chisholm
List of '2005 in' articles
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Virginia Mayo
List of '2005 in' articles
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Johnny Carson
List of '2005 in' articles
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Max Schmeling
3.
The State of California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
The State of California
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A forest of redwood trees in
Redwood National Park
The State of California
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Flag
The State of California
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Mount Shasta
The State of California
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Aerial view of the
California Central Valley
4.
Advanced Research Projects Administration
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the U. S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. DARPA was created in February 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and its purpose was to formulate and execute research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science, with the aim to reach beyond immediate military requirements. DARPA was created in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the name of the organization changed several times from its founding name ARPA, DARPA, ARPA, and DARPA. DARPA is independent from other research and development and reports directly to senior Department of Defense management. DARPA has about 240 employees, of whom 13 are in management, dARPA-funded projects have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as computer networking and graphical user interfaces in information technology. S. The mission statement has evolved over time, today, DARPAs mission is still to prevent technological surprise to the U. S. but also to create technological surprise for U. S. enemies. The creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency was authorized by President Dwight D.15 and its creation was directly attributed to the launching of Sputnik and to U. S. realization that the Soviet Union had developed the capacity to rapidly exploit military technology. Initial funding of ARPA was $520 million, ARPAs first director, Roy Johnson, left a $160,000 management job at General Electric for an $18,000 job at ARPA. Herbert York from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was hired as his scientific assistant, Johnson and York were both keen on space projects, but when NASA was established later in 1958 all space projects and most of ARPAs funding were transferred to it. Johnson resigned and ARPA was repurposed to do high-risk, high-gain, far out basic research, ARPAs second director was Brigadier General Austin W. Betts, who resigned in early 1961. He was succeeded by Jack Ruina who served until 1963, Ruina, the first scientist to administer ARPA, managed to raise its budget to $250 million. In pursuit of this mission, DARPA has developed and transferred technology programs encompassing a range of scientific disciplines that address the full spectrum of national security needs. From 1958 to 1965, ARPAs emphasis centered on major issues, including space, ballistic missile defense. During 1960, all of its civilian space programs were transferred to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the military space programs to the individual Services. This allowed ARPA to concentrate its efforts on the Project Defender, Project Vela, and Project AGILE Programs, and to work on computer processing, behavioral sciences. The DEFENDER and AGILE Programs formed the foundation of DARPA sensor, surveillance, and directed energy R&D, particularly in the study of radar, infrared sensing, ARPA at this point played an early role in Transit a predecessor to the Global Positioning System. Fast-forward to 1959 when a joint effort between DARPA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory began to fine-tune the early explorers’ discoveries, TRANSIT, sponsored by the Navy and developed under the leadership of Dr. Richard Kirschner at Johns Hopkins, was the first satellite positioning system. The agency was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972, and during the early 1970s, it emphasized direct energy programs, information processing, concerning information processing, DARPA made great progress, initially through its support of the development of time-sharing
Advanced Research Projects Administration
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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Advanced Research Projects Administration
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DARPA's former headquarters in the
Virginia Square neighborhood of Arlington. This agency recently moved to 675 North Randolph Street, near the Ballston Common Mall.
5.
Education in Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
Education in Nevada
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The quartzite of the Prospect Mountain Formation on top of Jeff Davis Peak in
Great Basin National Park
Education in Nevada
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Flag
Education in Nevada
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Mountains west of Las Vegas in the
Mojave Desert
Education in Nevada
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Vegetation at Timber Creek in the
Schell Creek Range
6.
Stanford
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Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and between San Jose and San Francisco. Its 8, 180-acre campus is one of the largest in the United States, Stanford also has land and facilities elsewhere. The university was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Stanford was a former Governor of California and U. S. Senator, he made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students 125 years ago on October 1,1891, Stanford University struggled financially after Leland Stanfords death in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the country. There are three schools that have both undergraduate and graduate students and another four professional schools. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. Stanford faculty and alumni have founded a number of companies that produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue. It is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires,17 astronauts and it is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress. Sixty Nobel laureates and seven Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanfords previous Palo Alto farm, despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I, the Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which was established in 1962, in 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped. Besides the central campus described below, the university also operates at more remote locations, some elsewhere on the main campus. Stanfords main campus includes a place within unincorporated Santa Clara County. The campus also includes land in unincorporated San Mateo County, as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park, Woodside. The academic central campus is adjacent to Palo Alto, bounded by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard, the United States Postal Service has assigned it two ZIP codes,94305 for campus mail and 94309 for P. O. box mail
Stanford
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Leland Stanford, the university's founder, as painted by
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier in 1881 and now on display at the
Cantor Center
Stanford
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Seal of Stanford University
Stanford
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Statue of the Stanford family, by
Larkin G. Mead (1899)
Stanford
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The ruins of the unfinished Stanford Library after the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
7.
Commons.wikimedia.org
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Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, the repository contains over 38 million media files. In July 2013, the number of edits on Commons reached 100,000,000, the project was proposed by Erik Möller in March 2004 and launched on September 7,2004. The expression educational is to be according to its broad meaning of providing knowledge. Wikimedia Commons itself does not allow fair use or uploads under non-free licenses, for this reason, Wikimedia Commons always hosts freely licensed media and deletes copyright violations. The default language for Commons is English, but registered users can customize their interface to use any other user interface translations. Many content pages, in particular policy pages and portals, have also translated into various languages. Files on Wikimedia Commons are categorized using MediaWikis category system, in addition, they are often collected on individual topical gallery pages. While the project was proposed to also contain free text files. In 2012, BuzzFeed described Wikimedia Commons as littered with dicks, in 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for hosting sexualized images of children known as lolicon. Wales responded to the backlash from the Commons community by voluntarily relinquishing some site privileges, over time, additional functionality has been developed to interface Wikimedia Commons with the other Wikimedia projects. Specialized uploading tools and scripts such as Commonist have been created to simplify the process of uploading large numbers of files. In order to free content photos uploaded to Flickr, users can participate in a defunct collaborative external review process. The site has three mechanisms for recognizing quality works, one is known as Featured pictures, where works are nominated and other community members vote to accept or reject the nomination. This process began in November 2004, another process known as Quality images began in June 2006, and has a simpler nomination process comparable to Featured pictures. Quality images only accepts works created by Wikimedia users, whereas Featured pictures additionally accepts nominations of works by third parties such as NASA, the three mentioned processes select a slight part from the total number of files. However, Commons collects files of all quality levels, from the most professional level across simple documental, files with specific defects can be tagged for improvement and warning or even proposed for deletion but there exists no process of systematic rating of all files. The site held its inaugural Picture of the Year competition, for 2006, all images that were made a Featured picture during 2006 were eligible, and voted on by eligible Wikimedia users during two rounds of voting
Commons.wikimedia.org
Commons.wikimedia.org
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Wikimedia Commons
Commons.wikimedia.org
Commons.wikimedia.org
