1.
Aladdin (franchise)
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Aladdin is a Disney media franchise comprising a film series and additional media. The 31st Disney animated feature film was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, and is based on the Arab-style folktale of Aladdin, the plot follows street urchin Aladdin as he attempts to gain the affection of Princess Jasmine after acquiring a magic lamp. Aladdin was followed by Disneys first direct-to-video sequel, The Return of Jafar in 1994, the plot mainly focused on Jafar seeking revenge on Aladdin. However, this time, with Iago on Aladdins side, Abis Mal becomes Jafars new henchman, Iago kicks the black lamp into the magma where it melts and submerges causing Jafar to disappear once and for all. In 1996, the sequel to Aladdin, Aladdin and the King of Thieves was released on video. The story concludes as Aladdin and Jasmine are about to have their wedding and Aladdin discovers that his father is still alive, on July 15,2015, it was reported that a live-action prequel to Aladdin is currently in development under the title, Genies. The new film will focus on genies, their realm. The film is being written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, tripp Vinson will serve as a producer through Vinson Films. If the film is a success, a remake of the original film may be made. Filming is expected to begin filming in July 2017, shortly after The Return of Jafar, the Aladdin TV series was aired on television. The episodes focused on Aladdins adventures after the events of the second film, on the TV series, Once Upon a Time and its spinoff Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Jafar appears as one of the main villains. In addition, Aladdin and Jasmine also appear in recurring roles in Once Upon a Times sixth season, descendants is a live-action Disney Channel Original Movie based on the lives of the children of various Disney heroes and villains when they attend the same prep school. Jafar appears in the film as does his son, Jay, the setting for the Aladdin franchise is the fictional sultanate of Agrabah. The original Aladdin film has received critical acclaim, the various other aspects of the franchise, such as the direct-to-video sequels, have received mixed to negative reviews. Along with the release, three different video games based on Aladdin were released. That same year, Capcom released a Super NES game, also called Disneys Aladdin, in 1994, SIMS released another game called Disneys Aladdin for the Game Gear and Master System. The television series inspired another game by Argonaut Games, entitled Aladdin, Nasiras Revenge and released in 2000 for the PlayStation, also, in 2004 Vivendi Universal released Disneys Aladdin Chess Adventures, a chess computer game with the Aladdin license. The Kingdom Hearts series features a playable Aladdin world known as Agrabah, in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, the plotline is loosely related to the storyline of the original film
2.
Ludwig Fulda
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Ludwig Anton Salomon Fulda was a German playwright and a poet with a strong social commitment. He lived with Moritz Moszkowskis first wife Henriette, née Chaminade, younger sister of pianist and he was a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and the first president of the PEN of Germany. He visited the United States in 1906 on the invitation of the Germanistic Society, due to being Jewish he was removed from his work by the Nazis in 1933. Fulda committed suicide in Berlin in 1939 when he was denied entry into the United States and his creations use the relationships of his characters to develop the social and political issues of his time. Fuldas work include Der Talisman, Jugendfreunde and Maskerade and his novel Der Seeräuber was later freely adapted into the play The Pirate by S. N. Behrman. Inspired by the story of Aladdin, he wrote Aladdin und die Wunderlampe, Works by Ludwig Fulda at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Ludwig Fulda at Internet Archive Works by Ludwig Fulda at LibriVox
3.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
4.
Fairy tale
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Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. The term is used for stories with origins in European tradition and, at least in recent centuries. In less technical contexts, the term is used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness. Colloquially, a tale or fairy story can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale, it is used especially of any story that not only is not true. Legends are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legends, Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form, the name fairy tale was first ascribed to them by Madame dAulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of todays fairy tales have evolved from stories that have appeared, with variations. The history of the tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways, the Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. It moves in a world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms, a fairy tale with a tragic rather than a happy end is called an anti-fairy tale. Although the fairy tale is a genre within the larger category of folktale. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame DAulnoys conte de fées, Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between fairy tales and animal tales on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Were I asked, what is a fairytale, I should reply, Read Undine, that is a fairytale. of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face. Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales, davidson and Chaudri identify transformation as the key feature of the genre
5.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
6.
One Thousand and One Nights
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One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, the work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, and South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish, the stories proceed from this original tale, some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more, the bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion. Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains, although some are longer, the main frame story concerns Shahryār, whom the narrator calls a Sasanian king ruling in India and China. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of only to execute each one the next morning. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, Scheherazade, the viziers daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, the king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins a new one, so it goes on for 1,001 nights. The tales vary widely, they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, numerous stories depict jinns, ghouls, apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. The different versions have different individually detailed endings but they all end with the giving his wife a pardon. The narrators standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature, the history of the Nights is extremely complex and modern scholars have made many attempts to untangle the story of how the collection as it currently exists came about. Most scholars agreed that the Nights was a work and that the earliest tales in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probably in the early 8th century, these tales were translated into Arabic under the title Alf Layla and this collection then formed the basis of The Thousand and One Nights. The original core of stories was quite small, then, in Iraq in the 9th or 10th century, this original core had Arab stories added to it – among them some tales about the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Devices found in Sanskrit literature such as stories and animal fables are seen by some scholars as lying at the root of the conception of the Nights. Indian folklore is represented in the Nights by certain animal stories, the influence of the Panchatantra and Baital Pachisi is particularly notable. The Jataka Tales are a collection of 547 Buddhist stories, which are for the most part moral stories with an ethical purpose
7.
Antoine Galland
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Antoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of One Thousand and One Nights which he called Les mille et une nuits. His version of the tales appeared in volumes between 1704 and 1717 and exerted a significant influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world. Jorge Luis Borges has suggested that Romanticism began when his translation was first read, Galland was born at Rollot in Picardy. After completing school at Noyon, he studied Greek and Latin in Paris, after a brief visit to France, where his collection of ancient coins attracted some attention, Galland returned to the Levant in 1677. In 1679 he undertook a voyage, being commissioned by the French East India Company to collect for the cabinet of Colbert. On the expiration of this commission, he was instructed by the government to continue his research, when dHerbelot died in 1695, Galland continued his Bibliothèque orientale, a huge compendium of information about Islamic culture. It was finally published in 1697 and was a contribution to European knowledge about the Middle East. After the deaths of Thévenot and dHerbelot, Galland lived for time at Caen under the roof of Nicolas Foucault. There he began, in 1704, the publication of Les mille et Une Nuits, in 1709 he was appointed to the chair of Arabic in the Collège de France. He continued to discharge the duties of this post until his death in 1715, the former of these works appeared in an English translation in 1795. His Contes et fables indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokrnan was published posthumously in 1724, among his numerous manuscripts are a translation of the Quran and a Histoire générale des empereurs Turcs. His journal was published by Charles Schefer in 1881, Galland had come across a manuscript of The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor in Constantinople during the 1690s and, in 1701, he published his translation of it into French. Its success encouraged him to embark on a translation of a 14th-century Syrian manuscript of tales from The Thousand, the first two volumes of this work, under the title Mille et Une Nuit, appeared in 1704. The twelfth and final volume was published posthumously in 1717 and he chose to include seven of these tales in his version of the Nights. Mystery still surrounds the origins of some of the most famous tales, for instance, there are no Arabic manuscripts of Aladdin and Ali Baba, the so-called orphan tales, which pre-date Gallands translation. The immediate success the tales enjoyed was partly due to the vogue for fairy stories, Galland was also eager to conform to the literary canons of the era. He cut many of the passages as well as all of the poetry. This caused Sir Richard Burton to refer to Gallands delightful abbreviation and adaptation which in no wise represent the eastern original
8.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
9.
Magician (fantasy)
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A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, warlock, witch, wizard, or wizardess is someone who uses or practices magic derived from supernatural or occult sources. Magicians are common figures in works of fantasy, such as literature and role-playing games, and enjoy a rich history in mythology, legends, fiction. In medieval chivalric romance, the wizard often appears as an old man and acts as a mentor. Other magicians, such as Saruman, from The Lord of the Rings series, villainous sorcerers were so crucial to pulp fantasy that the genre in which they appeared was dubbed sword and sorcery. Le Guins A Wizard of Earthsea explored the question of how wizards learned their art and this theme has been further developed in modern fantasy, often leading to wizards as heroes on their own quests. Such heroes may have their own mentor, a wizard as well, wizards can be cast similarly to the absent-minded professor, being foolish and prone to misconjuring. They can also be capable of magic, both good or evil. Even comical wizards are often capable of feats, such as those of Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, although he is a washed-up wizard fired by the villain. Wizards are often depicted as old, white-haired, and with white beards majestic enough to occasionally host lurking woodland creatures. This depiction predates the modern fantasy genre, being derived from the image of wizards such as Merlin. In the Dragonlance Dungeons and Dragons setting, wizards show their moral alignment by their robes, terry Pratchett described robes as a magicians way of establishing to those they meet that they are capable of practicing magic. To introduce conflict, writers of fiction often place limits on the magical abilities of wizards to prevent them from solving problems too easily. In Larry Nivens The Magic Goes Away, once an areas mana is exhausted, a common limit used in role-playing games is that a person can only cast a specific number of spells in a day. Magic can also require various sacrifices or the use of materials, such as gemstones, blood. Even if the magician lacks scruples, obtaining the material may be difficult, a. K. Moonfire combines these limits in his book The Aubrey Stalking Portal. The magician expends power to fuel his spells, but does not replenish that power naturally, therefore, the extent of a wizards knowledge is limited to which spells a wizard knows and can cast. Magic may also be limited by its danger, if a powerful spell can cause harm if miscast. Other forms of magic are limited by consequences that, while not inherently dangerous, are at least undesirable
10.
Maghreb
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The Maghreb, or the Greater Maghreb, is usually defined as much or most of the region of western North Africa or Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. Historical terms for the region or various portions of the Maghreb include Mauretania, Numidia, Libya, the term maghrib is Arabic for west, from the verb gharaba. In the strict sense, the definite form al-maghrib denotes the country of Morocco in particular and it identified the westernmost territories that fell to the Islamic conquests of the 7th century. Today, it is a noun for the present region of the Maghreb. The Berber languages alternative term for the region, Tamazgha, has been popularized by Berber activists since the second half of the 20th century. As recently as the late 19th century it was used to refer to the Western Mediterranean region of coastal North Africa in general, and to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia in particular. The region was unified as an independent political entity during the rule of the Berber kingdom of Numidia. The most enduring rule was that of the local Berber empires of the Almoravids, Almohads, Hammadids, Zirids, Marinids, Saadi, the Ottoman Turks ruled the region as well. Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya established the Maghreb Union in 1989 to promote cooperation and it was envisioned initially by Muammar Gaddafi as a superstate. The union included Western Sahara implicitly under Moroccos membership, putting Moroccos long cold war with Algeria to a rest, however, this progress was short-lived, and the union is now frozen. Tensions between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara re-emerged strongly, reinforced by the unsolved borderline issue between the two countries and these two main conflicts have hindered progress on the unions joint goals and practically made it inactive as a whole. Around 3,500 BC a tilt in the Earths orbit created a rapid desertification of the Sahara, the Maghreb or western North Africa is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers since from at least 10,000 BC. Maghreb coast ports were predominantly occupied or constructed by the Phoenicians, the main Phoenician settlements centered in the Gulf of Tunis along the North African littoral between the Pillars of Hercules and the Libyan coast east of ancient Cyrenaica. They dominated the trade and intercourse of the Western Mediterranean for centuries, Rome was greatly helped by the defection of King Massinissa and Carthaginians eastern Numidian Massylii client-allies. A century later, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I sent a force under General Belisarius that succeeded in destroying the Vandal kingdom, the Berbers contested outside-the-area control although after the 640s-700 AD period the Arabs controlled the entire region. The Arabs reached the Maghreb in early Umayyad times, Arab expansion and the spread of Islam pushed the development of trans-Saharan trade. While restricted due to the cost and dangers, the trade was highly profitable, commodities traded included such goods as salt, gold, ivory, and slaves. Arab control over the Maghreb was quite weak, various Islamic variations, such as the Ibadis and the Shia, were adopted by some Berbers, often leading to scorning of Caliphal control in favour of their own interpretation of Islam
11.
Tailor
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A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and mens clothing. The term refers to a set of hand and machine sewing and pressing techniques that are unique to the construction of traditional jackets. Retailers of tailored suits often take their services internationally, traveling to various cities, traditional tailoring is called bespoke tailoring in the United Kingdom, where the heart of the trade is Londons Savile Row tailoring, and custom tailoring in the United States and Hong Kong. This is unlike made to measure which uses pre-existing patterns, a bespoke garment or suit is completely original and unique to each customer. Famous fictional tailors include the tailor in The Tailor of Gloucester, The Emperors New Clothes, a more recent example is John le Carrés The Tailor of Panama. As the tailoring profession has evolved, so too have the methods of tailoring, there are a number of distinctive business models of which modern tailors may practice. While some may practice many, there are others who will only one or two. Local tailoring is as the name implies, typically the tailor is met locally and the garment produced locally. This method enables the tailor to take measurements, assess posture. Local tailors will typically have a showroom or shopfront allowing clients to choose fabrics from samples or return the garment easily should it require further modification and this is the most traditional form of tailoring. Hong Kong and London are the most famous for high quality bespoke tailoring, distance tailoring involves ordering a garment from an out-of-town tailor enabling cheaper labour to be used. In practice this can now be done on a global scale via e-commerce websites, unlike local tailoring, customers must take their own measurements, fabric selection must be made from a photo, and if further alterations are required the garment must be shipped. Today, the most common platform for distance tailoring is via online tailors, online tailors sometimes offer to pay for needed alterations at a local tailor. Another new option is the concept where a free test suit is made to the provided measurements, the test suit can be tried on and worn to see where any adjustments are wanted. The final suit is tailored to the new specifications provided by the test suit fitting. Traveling tailors travel between cities and station in a luxury hotel for a short period of time to meet. In the hotel, the customer will be able to select the fabric from samples, the order then will be shipped to the customer within three to four weeks time. Unlike local tailoring, if further alterations are required the garment must be shipped, today, most traveling tailors are from Hong Kong, traveling to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Japan
12.
Oil lamp
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An oil lamp is an object used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day and they are often associated with stories in which rubbing an oil lamp would summon a genie dwelling in it, like seen in Aladdin. Oil lamps are a form of lighting, and were used as an alternative to candles before the use of electric lights, starting in 1780 the Argand lamp quickly replaced other oil lamps still in their basic ancient form. These in turn were replaced by the lamp in about 1850. In small towns and rural areas the latter continued in use well into the 20th century, until such areas were finally electrified, most modern lamps have been replaced by gas-based or petroleum-based fuels to operate when emergency non-electric light is required. Therefore, oil lamps of today are used for the particular ambience they produce. The following are the external parts of a terra-cotta lamp. The width ranges from 0. 5-5 cm in general, there may be single or multiple holes. It may be just an opening in the body of the lamp, in some specific types of lamps there is a groove on the superior aspect of the nozzle that runs to the pouring hole to collect back the oozing oil from the wick. Handle Lamps come with and without a handle, the handle comes in different shapes. The most common is ring shaped for the forefinger surmounted by a palmette on which the thumb is pressed to stabilize the lamp, other handles are crescent shaped, triangular and semi-oval. The handleless lamps usually have a nozzle, and sometimes have a lug rising diagonally from the periphery. The lug may act as a handle where the thumb rests. It was speculated that pierced lugs were used to place a pen or straw, called the acus or festuca, others think that the pierced lugs were used to hang the lamp with a metal hook when not in use. Discus Fuel chamber The fuel reservoir, the mean volume in a typical terra-cotta lamp is 20 cc. Lamps can be categorized based on different criteria, including material, shape, structure, design, and imagery. Typologically, lamps of the Ancient Mediterranean can be divided into seven categories, Wheel made, This category includes Greek. They are characterized by simple, little or no decoration, and a wide hole, a lack of handles. Pierced lugs occurred briefly between 4th and 3rd century BCE, unpierced lugs continued until the 1st century BCE
13.
Booby trap
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A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word implies, they sometimes have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. At other times, the trap is set to act upon trespassers that violate personal or restricted areas, the device can be triggered when the victim performs some type of everyday action e. g. opening a door, picking something up or switching something on. They can also be triggered by driving along a road as in the case of victim-operated improvised explosive devices. Booby traps should not be confused with mantraps which are designed to catch a person, booby traps which merely cause discomfort or embarrassment are a popular form of practical joke. The Spanish word bobo translates to stupid, daft, naïve, simple, fool, idiot, clown, funny man, one who is easily cheated, the slang of bobo, bubie, translates to dunce. Variations of this word exist in other languages, with their meaning being to stammer, the word has also been applied to the Sula genus of sea birds, with their common name being boobies. These birds, adapted for sea flight and swimming, have flat feet and wide wingspans. As a result, they are considered clumsy and easy to catch when onshore and they are also known for landing aboard seagoing vessels, whereupon they have been eaten by the crew. In approximately 1590, the word appearing in the English language as booby, meaning stupid person. The phrase booby trap originally applied to schoolboy pranks, but took on its more sinister connotation during World War I. A military booby trap may be designed to kill or injure a person who activates its trigger, most, but not all, military booby traps involve explosives. There is no division between a booby trap and buried conventional land mines triggered by a tripwire or directional mine. Other, similar devices include spring-guns and mechanisms such as the SM-70 directional antipersonnel mine, what distinguishes a booby trap is that its activation is intended to be unexpected to its victim. Thus booby trap design is varied, with traps or their trigger mechanisms often hidden. Frequently at least part of the device is improvised from standard ordnance, such as a shell, grenade. Part of the skill in placing booby traps lies in exploiting natural human behaviors such as habit, self-preservation, an example that exploits an instinct for self-preservation was used in the Vietnam War. Spikes known as Punji sticks were hidden in grassy areas, when fired upon soldiers instinctively sought to take cover by throwing themselves down on the ground, impaling themselves on the spikes
14.
Magic ring
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A magic ring is a ring, usually a finger ring, that has magical properties. It appears frequently in fantasy and fairy tales, Magic rings are found in the folklore of every country where rings are worn. Some magic rings can endow the wearer with a variety of abilities including invisibility and immortality, others can grant wishes or spells such as neverending love and happiness. More often, however, they are featured as forces for good, early stories of magical rings date to classical antiquity. Plato, in the book of The Republic, tells a story about the Ring of Gyges. The shepherd Gyges, who found it in a cave, used its power to seduce the queen, kill the king, earlier accounts of Gyges, however, who was king of Lydia, make no mention of a magic ring. Rings are not generally attributed with magic powers in ancient Greek legend, although many other objects are listed. Josephus has an anecdote of one Eleazar who used a ring to exorcise demons in the presence of Vespasian. A magic ring, therefore, might confer immortality by preventing the souls departure and these magical properties inhibiting access to the soul may explain an ancient Greek maxim, attributed to Pythagoras, which forbade people to wear rings. Magic rings feature in Arabian Nights, where Judar bin Omar, a fisherman finds the ring of Al-Shamardal, the enchanter and Maaruf, the powers of both magic rings come from the servant jinni who are shut up in them by astro magical bonds. In the Story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp Aladdin also summons a second djinn from a ring given to him by the Maghrabi Magician. Magic rings are known in medieval Jewish esoteric tradition, they are mentioned in the Talmud, solomons magical ring had many properties in legend, making him all-knowing, conferring him with the ability to speak with animals and bearing the special sigil that sealed genies into bottles. A story about King Solomon and a ring is found in the Babylonian Talmud, the power of a ring is in the divine name with which it is inscribed, such rings are used to invoke and command various guardians of heavenly palaces and to gain entrance to those heavens. In the Zohar, God is thought to own and use a ring, or, at least. In the medieval collection of Welsh tales called the Mabinogion one of the romances – Geraint ab Erbin – has the eponymous character find a ring that grants him the powers of invisibility when worn. A small number of Viking Age finger rings bearing runic inscriptions of apparently magical significance are known, among them the Kingmoor Ring, an early magical ring in European mythology is the arm ring named Draupnir worn by the Norse god Odin. Because its only reported function was to create more gold arm bands every nine days, another Norse ring was called Andvarinaut. Andvarinaut is the famous Ring of the Niebelung from The Volsunga Saga and The Nibelungenlied, sir Yvain is given a magic ring by a maiden in Chrétien de Troyes 12th-century Arthurian romance The Knight of the Lion
15.
Jinn
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Jinn, also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies, are supernatural creatures in early Arabian and later Islamic mythology and theology. An individual member of the jinn is known as a jinni, djinni and they are mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic texts. The jinn, humans, and angels make up the three known sapient creations of God, like human beings, the jinn can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent and hence have free will like humans. Jaini were among various creatures believe among pre-Zoroastrian peoples of Persia, Jinn is an Arabic collective noun deriving from the Semitic root JNN, whose primary meaning is to hide. Some authors interpret the word to mean, literally, beings that are concealed from the senses, cognates include the Arabic majnūn, jannah, and janīn. Jinn is properly treated as a plural, with the singular being jinni, the anglicized form genie is a borrowing of the French génie, from the Latin genius, a guardian spirit of people and places in Roman religion. It first appeared in 18th-century translations of the Thousand and One Nights from the French, numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre-Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre-Islamic Bedouin religion. Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy, and dark places, One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult. In Islamic theology jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from fire by God as humans were made of clay. When jinns are called fire spirits it´s does not refer to their current nature, Jinn are mentioned 29 times in the Quran, Surah 72 is named after the jinn, and has a passage about them. Another surah mentions jinn in the last verse, the Quran also mentions that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both humanity and the jinn, and that prophets and messengers were sent to both communities. Like humans, jinn will also be judged on the Day of Judgment, the social organization of the jinn community resembles that of humans, e. g. they have kings, courts of law, weddings, mourning rituals and practise religion. One common belief in Muslim belief lists five distinct orders of jinn — the Marid, the Ifrit, the Shaitan, the Ghul, and the Jann. A few traditions, divide jinn into three classes, those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, described them as creatures of different forms, some resembling vultures and snakes, others tall men in white garb. They may even appear as dragons, onagers, or any number of other animals, in addition to their animal forms, the jinn occasionally assume human form to mislead and destroy their human victims. Ibn Taymiyyah, a late medieval theologian whose writings would later become the source of Wahhabism, believed the jinn to be generally ignorant, untruthful, oppressive. In Sūrat Al-Jinn, verses 8–10, Allah narrates concerning the jinn how they touched or sought the limits of the sky and found it full of guards and shooting stars. Seven kings of the Jinn are traditionally associated with days of the week, the notion of a qarin is not universally accepted among all Muslims, but it is generally accepted that Shayṭān whispers in human minds, and he is assigned to each human being
16.
Vizier
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A vizier is a high-ranking political advisor or minister. In modern usage, the term has been used for ministers in the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, East Africa Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is also used in the only absolute Asian monarchy. It is given to the current King Hassanal Bolkiahs second brother, in Brunei, an ordinary vizier is known as Pengiran Temenggong. The word entered into English in 1562 from the Turkish vezir, Wazir itself has two possible etymologies, The most accepted etymology is that it is derived from the Arabic wazara, from the Semitic root W-Z-R. The word is mentioned in the Quran, where Aaron is described as the wazir of Moses, on the other hand, the presence of a Middle Persian word vizīr or vicīr, cognate to the Avestan vīcira, meaning decreer or arbitrator, could possibly indicate an Indo-European origin. In modern Turkey, there is no usage of vezir for any ministry as suggested in the description above, the Muslim office of vizier, which spread from the Persians, Turks, Arabs and Mongols and neighboring peoples, arose under the first Abbasid caliphs. The vizier stood between sovereign and subjects, representing the former in all matters touching the latter, if one such vizier is the prime minister, he may hold the title of Grand Vizier or another title. In Al-Andalus appointed by the Caliph of Cordoba, similarly in many of the emirates and sultanates of the taifas which the caliphate was broken up into. In Muslim Egypt, the most populous Arab country, Under the Fatimid Caliphs. Again since the end of Ottoman rule, remarkably since 1857 (i. e. before the last Wali, Ismail Pasha, was raised Khedive. During the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Vizier was the—often de facto minister, second only to the Sultan and was the leader of the Divan. Vizier was also the title of some Ottoman provincial governors, use of the title indicating a greater degree of autonomy for the province involved. In the Sherifian kingdom of Morocco, a Sadr al-Azam was in office until 22 November 1955, Grand Vizier, Chief Minister or Prime Minister. Wazir al-Amala, Minister for the Interior, Wazir al-Bahr, Minister of the Sea, i. e. for the Navy/ Marine. Wazir al-Harb, Minister for the Army or Minister for War, Wazir al-Qalam, Minister of the Pen. In Oman the Hami/Sultans Chief minister was styled Wazir till 1966, Viziers to the Sultans of Zanzibar, since 1890 filled by British, also known as First ministers, the British Resident s, an extremely direct form of indirect rule. Grand Viziers to the Sultan of Sokoto – this is however disputed, the title Waziri is apparently a derivative of this word, and is a highly regarded chieftaincy title in most of northern Nigeria
17.
Les mille et une nuits
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For the French publishers imprint, see Fayard. Les mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français, the French translation by Antoine Galland derived from an Arabic text of the Syrian recension of the medieval work as well as other sources. Galland had come across a manuscript of The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor in Constantinople during the 1690s and its success encouraged him to embark on a translation of a 14th-century Syrian manuscript of tales from The Thousand and One Nights. The first two volumes of work, under the title Les mille et une nuits, appeared in 1704. The twelfth and final volume was published posthumously in 1717, Gallands diary records that he met Hanna through Paul Lucas, a French traveler who had brought him to Paris. Hanna recounted 14 stories to Galland from memory and Galland chose to include seven of them in his books and this mysterious situation has led some scholars to conclude that Galland invented the orphan tales himself and that subsequent Arabic versions are merely later renderings of his original French. Galland adapted his translation to the taste of the times, the immediate success the tales enjoyed was partly due to the vogue for fairy stories — in French, contes de fées — which had been started in France in the 1690s by Gallands friend Charles Perrault. Galland was also eager to conform to the canons of the era. He cut many of the passages out along with all of the poetry. This caused Sir Richard Burton to refer to Gallands delightful abbreviation and adaptation which in no wise represent the eastern original. The most famous and eloquent encomiums of The Thousand and One Nights — by Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey, Stendhal, Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Newman — are from readers of Gallands translation. Two hundred years and ten better translations have passed, but the man in Europe or the Americas who thinks of the Thousand and One Nights thinks, invariably, of this first translation. The Spanish adjective milyunanochesco. has nothing to do with the erudite obscenities of Burton or Mardrus, 1704–1717, Les mille et une nuit, contes arabes traduits en François, par M. Galland, Paris, la Veuve Claude Barbin, In-12. 1,2,3,4,5,6 = 1704–1705, Paris, la Veuve Claude Barbin Vol.7 =1706, Paris, la Veuve Claude Barbin Vol.8 =1709, Paris, la Boutique de Claude Barbin, chez la veuve Ricoeur Vols. 9,10 =1712, Paris, Florentin Delaulne Vols,11,12 =1717, Lyon, Briasson The longest volume in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade series is Les Mille et Une Nuits I, II et III, at 3,504 pages. Les mille et une nuits as translated by Galland Open Sesame 1822 edition of Gallands translation
18.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
19.
Ottoman Syria
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Ottoman Syria became organized by the Ottomans upon conquest from the Mamluks in the early 16th century into eyalets of Damascus and Aleppo. Eyalet of Tripoli was formed in 1579 and later Eyalet of Adana was split from Aleppo, in 1660, Eyalet of Safed was established and shortly afterwards renamed Eyalet of Sidon. The eyalets were later transformed into the Vilayet of Syria, the Vilayet of Aleppo, before 1516, Syria was part of the Mamluk Empire centered in Egypt. The Ottoman Sultan Selim I conquered Syria in 1516 after defeating the Mamlukes at the Battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo in northern Syria. Selim carried on his victorious campaign against the Mamlukes and conquered Egypt in 1517 following the Battle of Ridanieh, when he first seized Syria in 1516, Selim I kept the administrative subdivisions of the Mamluk period unchanged. After he came back from Egypt in July 1517, he reorganized Syria into one province or eyalet named Şam. The eyalet was subdivided into districts or sanjaks. In 1549, Syria was reorganized into two eyalets, the northern Sanjak of Aleppo became the center of the new Eyalet of Aleppo. At this time, the eyalets became as follows, The Eyalet of Aleppo included the Sanjaks of Aleppo, Adana, Marash, Aintab, the Eyalet of Tripoli included the Sanjaks of Tripoli, Latakia, Hama and Homs. The Eyalet of Damascus included the Sanjaks of Damascus, Beirut, Sidon, Acre, Safad, Nablus, Jerusalem, Gaza and it was later renamed the Eyalet of Sidon, and later, the Eyalet of Beirut. In 1833, the Syrian provinces were ceded to Muhammed Ali of Egypt in the Convention of Kutahya, the firman stated that The governments of Candia and Egypt are continued to Mahomet Ali. In this period, the Sublime Portes firmans of 1839 and, more decisively, the former resented the implied loss of superiority and recurrently assaulted and massacred Christian communities — in Aleppo in 1850, in Nablus in 1856, and in Damascus and Lebanon in 1860. In 1872 Jerusalem and the towns became the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The Geographical Dictionary of the World, published in 1906, describes Syria as and it comprises the vilayet of Syria, or of Damascus, the vilayet of Beirut, the part of the vilayet of Aleppo, and the mutessarrifliks of Jerusalem and the Lebanon. Palestine is included in Syria, comprising the mutessarriflik of Jerusalem and part of the vilayets of Beirut and Syria. The designation Syria is sometimes used in wider sense so as to include the whole of the vilayet of Aleppo and the Zor Sanjak and it included that part of the country which was afterwards detached from it to form the mandated territory of Palestine
20.
Aleppo
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Aleppo is a city in Syria, serving as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,132,100, Aleppo was the largest Syrian city before the Syrian Civil War, however, now Aleppo is likely the second-largest city in Syria after the capital Damascus. Aleppo is an ancient city, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, such a long history is attributed to its strategic location as a trading center midway between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. For centuries, Aleppo was the largest city in the Syrian region, and it was also one of the largest cities in the Levant before the advent of the Syrian Civil War. The citys significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, when the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo ceded its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, in the 1940s, it lost its main access to the sea, Antakya and İskenderun, also to Turkey. Finally, the isolation of Syria in the past few decades further exacerbated the situation and this decline may have helped to preserve the old city of Aleppo, its medieval architecture and traditional heritage. It won the title of the Islamic Capital of Culture 2006, during the Battle of Aleppo the city suffered massive destruction, and has been the worst-hit city in the Syrian Civil War. In December 2016, the Syrian government achieved full control of Aleppo following a successful offensive, modern-day English-speakers commonly refer to the city as Aleppo. It was known in antiquity as Khalpe, Khalibon, and to the Greeks, during the Crusades, and again during the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon of 1923–1946, the name Alep was used. Aleppo represents the Italianised version of this, the original ancient name, Halab, has survived as the current Arabic name of the city. Some have proposed that halab means iron or copper in Amorite languages, the modern-day Arabic nickname of the city, ash-Shahbaa, which means the white-colored, also allegedly derives from the famous white marble of Aleppo. From the 11th century it was common usage to apply the term Aram-Zobah to the area of Aleppo. Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the city occupies its ancient site. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as shown by excavations in Tallet Alsauda, Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, some historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Aleppo with the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi, although this identification is contested. The main temple of the storm god Hadad was located on the hill in the center of the city. In the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Empire period, Aleppos name appears in its form as Ḥalab for the first time
21.
Maronite Church
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The Syriac Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church of the Catholic Church. It came in communion with the Pope, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches by the Patriarch of Antioch, officially known as the Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch al-Kanīsa al-Anṭākiyya al-Suryāniyya al-Mārūniyya), it is part of the Syriac Christianity by liturgy and heritage. Traditionally, the Maronite Church ministers to the Levant, particularly around Mount Lebanon, other centers of historical importance include Kfarhay, Yanouh, Mayfouq and Qadisha Valley. Establishment of the Maronite Church can be divided into three periods, from the 4th to the 7th centuries, a congregation movement, with Saint Maroun as an inspirational leader and patron saint marked the first period. The second began with the establishment of the Monastery of Saint Maroun on the Orontes and this monastery was described as the Greatest Monastery in the region of Secunda Syria, with more than 300 hermitages around it, according to ancient records. After 518, the de facto administered many parishes in Prima Syria. The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch re-established their patriarchate in 751 AD, although reduced in numbers today, Maronites remain one of the principals ethno-religious groups in Lebanon, with smaller minorities of Maronites in Syria, Cyprus, Israel and Jordan. Over 3,198,600 Maronites practice the faith, Maron is considered the founder of the spiritual and monastic movement now called the Maronite Church. This movement has had an influence in Lebanon, and to a lesser degree in Syria, Jordan. Saint Maron spent his life on a mountain in Syria, generally believed to be Kefar-Nabo on the mountain of Ol-Yambos, thesix major traditions of the Catholic Church are Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, Chaldean, Constantinopolitan, and Latin. The Maronite Church follows the Antiochene Tradition, a Roman Catholic may attend any Eastern Catholic Liturgy and fulfill his or her obligations at an Eastern Catholic Parish. That is, a Roman Catholic may join any Eastern Catholic Parish, Maronites who do not reside within a convenient distance to a local Maronite Church are permitted to attend other Catholic churches while retaining their Maronite membership. The Maronite Patriarchal Assembly identified five distinguishing marks of the Maronite Church and it is Chalcedonian, in that the Maronites were strong supporters of the Council of Chalcedon of 451. It is faithful to the See of Peter in Rome and it has strong ties to Lebanon. Many of his followers also lived a monastic lifestyle, following Marons death in 410 AD, his disciples built Beth-Maron monastery at Apamea. This formed the nucleus of the Maronite Church, in 452, after the Council of Chalcedon, the monastery was expanded by the Byzantine emperor Marcian. The Maronite movement reached Lebanon when St. Marons first disciple, Abraham of Cyrrhus, the Maronites subscribed to the beliefs of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Monophysites of Antioch slew 350 monks and burned the monastery, although Justinian I later restored the walls, correspondence concerning the event brought the Maronites papal and orthodox recognition, indicated by a letter from Pope Hormisdas dated February 10,518
22.
John Payne (poet)
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John Payne was an English poet and translator. Initially he pursued a career, and associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing, and the Villon Society and he is now best known for his translations of Boccaccios Decameron, The Arabian Nights and the Diwan Hafez. After completing his translation of Omar Khayyam, Payne returned to the rendition of Hafiz eventually published in 3 vols. in 1901, Payne argues that Hafiz takes the whole sweep of human experience and irradiates all things with his sun-gold and his wisdom. Payne once said that Hafez, Dante and Shakespeare were the three greatest poets of the world, the Masque of Shadows and other poems Intaglios, sonnets Songs of Life and Death. Lautrec, A Poem The Poems of François Villon, verse and prose translation in 15 volumes, edited by Leonard C
23.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
24.
Buddhists
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
25.
Confucians
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Confucianism, also known as Ruism, is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. In the Han dynasty, Confucian approaches edged out the proto-Taoist Huang-Lao, the disintegration of the Han political order in the second century CE opened the way for the doctrines of Buddhism and Neo-Taoism, which offered spiritual explanations lacking in Confucianism. A Confucian revival began during the Tang dynasty of 618-907, in the late Tang, Confucianism developed in response to Buddhism and Taoism and was reformulated as Neo-Confucianism. This reinvigorated form was adopted as the basis of the imperial exams, the abolition of the examination system in 1905 marked the end of official Confucianism. The New Culture intellectuals of the twentieth century blamed Confucianism for Chinas weaknesses. In the late twentieth century Confucian work ethic has been credited with the rise of the East Asian economy, with particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic. While Tiān has some characteristics that overlap the category of deity, it is primarily an impersonal absolute principle, Confucianism focuses on the practical order that is given by a this-worldly awareness of the Tiān. Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, Some of the basic Confucian ethical concepts and practices include rén, yì, and lǐ, and zhì. Rén is the essence of the human being which manifests as compassion and it is the virtue-form of Heaven. Yì is the upholding of righteousness and the disposition to do good. Lǐ is a system of norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act in everyday life according to the law of Heaven. Zhì is the ability to see what is right and fair, or the converse, Confucianism holds one in contempt, either passively or actively, for failure to uphold the cardinal moral values of rén and yì. In the 20th century Confucianisms influence diminished greatly, in the last decades there have been talks of a Confucian Revival in the academic and the scholarly community and there has been a grassroots proliferation of various types of Confucian churches. In late 2015 many Confucian personalities formally established a national Holy Confucian Church in China to unify the many Confucian congregations, strictly speaking, there is no term in Chinese which directly corresponds to Confucianism. In the Chinese language, the character rú 儒 meaning scholar or learned man is used both in the past and the present to refer to things related to Confucianism. The character rú in ancient China has diverse meanings, Some examples include, weak, soft, to tame, to comfort and to educate or to refine. Rújiā contains the character jiā, which means family. Rújiào and Kǒngjiào contain the Chinese character jiào, the teaching or transmission, used in such terms as education
26.
Hui people
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According to a 2011 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people, the majority of whom are Chinese-speaking practitioners of Islam, though some may practice other religions. Hui people are ethnically and linguistically similar to Han Chinese with the exception that most of them practice Islam, engendering distinctive cultural characteristics. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in China, the Hui people are one of 56 ethnic groups recognized by China. The government defines the Hui people to include all historically Muslim communities not included in Chinas other ethnic groups, the Hui predominantly speak Chinese, while maintaining some Persian and Arabic phrases. In fact, the Hui ethnic group is unique among Chinese ethnic minorities in that it associates with non-Sinitic languages. The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China, but communities exist across the country, e. g. Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Hainan. After the establishment of the Peoples Republic, the term Hui applied to one of Chinas ten historically Islamic minorities, earlier the term referred to Chinese-speaking groups with Muslim ancestry. Practising Islam was not a criterion, use of the Hui category to describe foreign Muslims moving into China dates back to the Song dynasty. Hui people are of varied ancestry, many directly descending from Silk Road travelers and their ancestors include Central Asians, Arabs and Persians who married Hans. West Eurasian DNA is prevalent—6. 7% of Hui peoples maternal genetics have a West Eurasian origin, in subsequent centuries, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Hans, eventually forming the Hui. Nonetheless, included among Huis in Chinese census statistics are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities, a small Muslim minority among Yunnans Bai people are classified as Hui as well, as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims. Huihui was the generic term for Chinas Muslims during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Is thought to have its origin in the earlier Huihe or Huihu, although the ancient Uyghurs were not Muslims the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan. and Ming Dynasties. By the aid of heaven we have pacified you, you are our slaves, yet you do not eat our food or drink. If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime and he issued a regulation to that effect. All the Muslims say, if someone else slaughters we do not eat, the Chinese called Muslims, Jews and Christians in ancient times by the same name, Hui Hui. Christians were called Hui who abstain from animals without the foot, Muslims were called Hui who abstain from pork. Hui Hui is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan mao Hui Hui which means Blue cap Hui Hui
27.
Silk Road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
28.
History of Islam in China
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Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas again headed for China for the third time in 650–51 after Caliph ‘Uthman asked him to lead an embassy to China, which the Chinese emperor received warmly. Trade existed between pre-Islamic Arabia and Chinas South Coast, and flourished when Arab maritime traders converted to Islam and it reached its peak under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Islamic influence came from the steppe peoples who assimilated in Chinese culture. Muslims served as administrators, generals, and other leaders who were transferred to China from Persia, Muslims in China have managed to practice their faith in China, sometimes against great odds, since the seventh century. Islam is one of the religions that is officially recognized in China. The embassy was led by Sad ibn Abī Waqqās, the uncle of the prophet himself. Emperor Gaozong, the Tang emperor who received the envoy then ordered the construction of the Memorial mosque in Canton, Hui legends seem to confuse the 651 visit with the initiation of Islam as early as 616/17 by earlier visits of Sahabas. Arab people are first noted in Chinese written records, under the name Ta shi in the annals of the Tang Dynasty, records dating from 713 speak of the arrival of a Da shi ambassador. The first major Muslim settlements in China consisted of Arab and Persian merchants, despite conflict between the Tang and the Abbasids during the Battle of Talas in 751, relations between the two states improved soon after. In 756, a contingent probably consisting of Persians and Iraqis was sent to Kansu to help the emperor Su-Tsung in his struggle against the rebellion of An Lushan. Less than 50 years later, an alliance was concluded between the Tang and the Abbasids against Tibetan attacks in Central Asia, a mission from the Caliph Harun al-Rashid arrived at Changan. It is recorded that in 758, a large Muslim settlement in Guangzhou erupted in unrest, the community had constructed a large mosque, destroyed by fire in 1314, and constructed in 1349-51, only ruins of a tower remain from the first building. During the Tang Dynasty, a stream of Arab and Persian traders arrived in China through the silk road. Not all of the immigrants were Muslims, but many of those who stayed formed the basis of the Chinese Muslim population, the Persian immigrants introduced polo, their cuisine, their musical instruments, and their knowledge of medicine to China. Many Muslims went to China to trade, and these Muslims began to have an economic impact. During the Song Dynasty, Muslims in China dominated foreign trade, in 1070, the Song emperor, Shen-tsung invited 5,300 Muslim men from Bukhara, to settle in China. The emperor used these men in his campaign against the Liao empire in the northeast, later on these men were settled between the Sung capital of Kaifeng and Yenching. The object was to create a zone between the Chinese and the Liao
29.
History of the Jews in China
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Jews and Judaism in China have had a long history. Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, relatively isolated communities developed through the Tang and Song Dynasties all the way through the Qing Dynasty, most notably in the Kaifeng Jews. By the time of the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, few if any native Chinese Jews were known to have maintained the practice of their religion and culture. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, some international Jewish groups have helped Chinese Jews rediscover their heritage, in the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Jewish refugees escaping from the 1917 Russian Revolution arrived in China. By the 9th century, ibn Khordadbeh noted the travels of Jewish merchants called Radhanites, Jacob of Ancona, the supposed author of a book of travels, was a scholarly Jewish merchant who wrote in vernacular Italian, and reached China in 1271, although some authors question it. During the period of opening and quasi-colonialism, the first group to settle in China were Jews who arrived in China under British protection following the First Opium War. Many of these Jews were of Indian or Iraqi origin, due to British colonialism in these regions, the second community came in the first decades of the 20th century when many Jews arrived in Hong Kong and Shanghai during those cities periods of economic expansion. Many more arrived as refugees from the Russian Revolution of 1917, a surge of Jews and Jewish families was to arrive in the late 1930s and 1940s, for the purpose of seeking refuge from the Holocaust in Europe and were predominantly of European origin. Shanghai was notable for its volume of Jewish refugees, most of whom left after the war, over the centuries, the Kaifeng community came to be virtually indistinguishable from the Chinese population and is not recognized by the Chinese government as a separate ethnic minority. This is as a result of having maintained already-Jewish and adopted many Han Chinese customs including patrilineal descent, since their religious practices are considered to be functionally extinct, they are not eligible for expedited immigration to Israel under the Law of Return unless they explicitly convert. Today, some descendants of the Jews still live in the Han Chinese, some of them, as well as international Jewish communities, are beginning to revive their interest in this heritage. The study of Judaism in China has been, like other Abrahamic religions, a subject of interest to some Westerners, traces of some ancient Jewish rituals have been observed in some places. There is a tradition that the first Jews immigrated to China through Persia following the Roman Emperor Tituss capture of Jerusalem in 70 CE. A large number of Jews emigrated from Persia during the reign of Emperor Ming of Han, writing in 1900, Father Joseph Brucker hypothesized that Jews came to China from India by a sea route during the Song dynasty between 960 and 1126. Three steles with inscriptions found at Kaifeng bear some historical suggestions, the second table, dated 1512 details the Jews religious practices. The third is dated 1663 and commemorates the re-rebuilding of the Qingzhen si synagogue and it was also stated in the manuscripts that there was a greater number of Jews in Hangzhou. This could be taken to suggest that loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong to Hangzhou, in fact, the 1489 stele mentions how the Jews abandoned Bianliang after the Jingkang Incident. Many Jewish communities were established in China in the Middle Ages, however, not all left evidence of their existence
30.
Turkestan
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Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan, literally means Land of the Turks in Persian. It refers to an area in Central Asia between Siberia to the north and Tibet, India and Afghanistan to the south, the Caspian Sea to the west, of Persian origin, the term Turkestan has never referred to a single national state. Muslim geographers first used the word to describe the place of Turkic peoples, Turkestan was used to describe any place where Turkic peoples lived. Anatolia during Ottoman rule was referred to as Turkestan by Ottoman writers, on their way southward during the conquest of Central Asia in the course of the 19th century, the Russians took the city of Turkestan in 1864. Mistaking its name for that of the region, they adopted the name of Turkestan for their new territory. It includes present-day Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang. Often, the history of Turkestan dates back to at least the third millennium BC. Many artifacts were produced in that period, and much trade was conducted, the region was a focal point for cultural diffusion, as the Silk Road traversed it. Turkestan covers the area of Central Asia and acquired its Turkic character from the 4th to 6th centuries AD with the incipient Turkic expansion, Huns conquered the area after they conquered Kashgaria in the early 2nd century BC. With the dissolution of the Huns empire, Chinese rulers took over Eastern Turkestan, arab forces captured it in the 8th century. The Persian Samanid dynasty subsequently conquered it and the area experienced economic success, the entire territory was held at various times by Turkic forces, such as the Göktürks until the conquest by Genghis Khan and the Mongols in 1220. Genghis Khan gave the territory to his son, Chagatai and the became the Chagatai Khanate. Timur took over the portion of Turkestan in 1369 and the area became part of the Timurid Empire. Eastern portion of Turkestan was also called Mogulistan, and continued to be ruled by descendants of Genghis Khan, known as Turan to the Persians, western Turkestan has also been known historically as Sogdiana, Ma waraun-nahr, and Transoxiana by Western travellers. Tajiks and Russians form sizable non-Turkic minorities and it is subdivided into Afghan Turkestan and Russian Turkestan in the West, and Xinjiang in the East. Aladdin, an Arabic Islamic story which is set in China, the title Malik al-Mashriq wal-Ṣīn was bestowed by the Abbāsid Caliph upon the Tamghaj Khan, the Samarqand Khaqan Yūsuf b. Western Liaos rule over Muslim Central Asia reinforced these Muslims view that Central Asia was a Chinese territory. For example, Turkestan and Chīn were identified with each other by Fakhr al-Dīn Mubārak Shāh, with China being identified as the country where the cities of Balāsāghūn, the Liao Chinese traditions and the Qara Khitais clinging helped the Qara Khitai avoid Islamization and conversion to Islam. The Qara Khitai used Chinese and Central Asian features in their administrative system, although in modern Urdu Chin means China, Chin referred to Central Asia in Muhammad Iqbals time, which is why Iqbal wrote that Chin is ours in his song Tarana-e-Milli
31.
Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
32.
Xinjiang
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Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a provincial-level autonomous region of China in the northwest of the country. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and the 8th largest country subdivision in the world and it contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin, which is administered by China. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiangs borders, as well as its western and southern regions. Xinjiang also borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu, the most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang and it is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Hui, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Russians. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang, older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range, only about 4. 3% of Xinjiangs land area is fit for human habitation. With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, the territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, which was later replaced by the Republic of China government. Since 1949, it has been part of the Peoples Republic of China following the Chinese Civil War, in 1954, Xinjiang Bingtuan was set up to strengthen the border defense against the Soviet Union, and also promote the local economy. In 1955, Xinjiang was turned into a region from a province. In the last decades, there have been tensions regarding Xinjiangs political status, amnesty International said that activists in Xinjiang have been arrested and tortured. Under the Han dynasty, which drove the Xiongnu empire out of the region in 60 BC, Xinjiang was previously known as Xiyu or Qurighar and this was in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road. Dzungaria was known as Zhunbu and the Tarim Basin was known as Huijiang during the Qing dynasty before both regions were merged and became the region of Gansu Xinjiang, later simplified as Xinjiang. The name Xinjiang, which literally means New Frontier or New Borderland, was given during the Qing dynasty, according to the Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtangs report to the Emperor of Qing, Xinjiang means an old land newly returned. For instance, present-day Jinchuan County was known as Jinchuan Xinjiang, in the same manner, present-day Xinjiang was known as Xiyu Xinjiang and Gansu Xinjiang. After 1821, the Qing changed the names of the other regained regions, the name East Turkestan was created by Russian sinologist Hyacinth to replace the term Chinese Turkestan in 1829. East Turkestan was used traditionally to only refer to the Tarim Basin, in 1955, Xinjiang province was renamed Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The name that was proposed was simply Xinjiang Autonomous Region
33.
The Walt Disney Company
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The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. It is the second largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue. Disney was founded on October 16,1923 – by brothers Walt Disney, the company also operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio and then Walt Disney Productions. Taking on its current name in 1986, it expanded its operations and also started divisions focused upon theater, radio, music, publishing. In addition, Disney has since created corporate divisions in order to more mature content than is typically associated with its flagship family-oriented brands. The company is best known for the products of its studio, Walt Disney Studios. Disneys other three divisions are Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney Media Networks, and Disney Consumer Products. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6,1991, Mickey Mouse, an early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, is a primary symbol and mascot for Disney. In early 1923, Kansas City, Missouri, animator Walt Disney created a film entitled Alices Wonderland. After the bankruptcy in 1923 of his previous firm, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, Disney moved to Hollywood to join his brother, Walt and Roy Disney formed Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio that same year. More animated films followed after Alice, in January 1926, with the completion of the Disney studio on Hyperion Street, the Disney Brothers Studios name was changed to the Walt Disney Studio. The distributor owned Oswald, so Disney only made a few hundred dollars, Disney completed 26 Oswald shorts before losing the contract in February 1928, due to a legal loophole, when Winklers husband Charles Mintz took over their distribution company. After failing to take over the Disney Studio, Mintz hired away four of Disneys primary animators to start his own animation studio, Snappy Comedies. In 1928, to recover from the loss of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney came up with the idea of a character named Mortimer while on a train headed to California. The mouse was later renamed Mickey Mouse and starred in several Disney produced films, ub Iwerks refined Disneys initial design of Mickey Mouse. Disneys first sound film Steamboat Willie, a cartoon starring Mickey, was released on November 18,1928 through Pat Powers distribution company and it was the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon released, but the third to be created, behind Plane Crazy and The Gallopin Gaucho. Disney used Pat Powers Cinephone system, created by Powers using Lee De Forests Phonofilm system, Steamboat Willie premiered at B. S. Mosss Colony Theater in New York City, now The Broadway Theatre. Disneys Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho were then retrofitted with synchronized sound tracks, Disney continued to produce cartoons with Mickey Mouse and other characters, and began the Silly Symphonies series with Columbia Pictures signing on as Symphonies distributor in August 1929
34.
Pantomime
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Pantomime, is a type of musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, generally during the Christmas and New Year season and, to a lesser extent. It is a form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music. Pantomime has a theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dellarte tradition of Italy, as well as other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques, an important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Outside Britain the word pantomime is used to mean miming. The Roman pantomime drew upon the Greek tragedy and other Greek genres from its inception, although the art was instituted in Rome, the English word came to be applied to the performance itself. Music was supplied by flute and the pulse of an iron-shod shoe, performances might be in a private household, with minimal personnel, or else lavish theatrical productions involving a large orchestra and chorus and sometimes an ancillary actor. The dancer danced all the roles, relying on masks, stock poses and gestures, Pantomime differed from mime by its more artistic nature and relative lack of farce and coarse humour, though these were not absent from some productions. Precursors of pantomime also included the masque, which grew in pomp, the development of English pantomime was also strongly influenced by the continental commedia dellarte, a form of popular theatre that arose in Italy in the Early Modern Period. Each scenario used some of the stock characters. These included the innamorati, the vecchi such as Pantalone, and zanni such as Arlecchino, Colombina, Scaramouche, Italian masque performances in the 17th century sometimes included the Harlequin character. In the 17th century, adaptations of the characters became familiar in English entertainments. From these, the standard English harlequinade developed, depicting the eloping lovers Harlequin and Columbine, pursued by the girls father Pantaloon and his comic servants Clown, in English versions, by the 18th century, Harlequin became the central figure and romantic lead. The basic plot of the harlequinade remained essentially the same for more than 150 years, tavern Bilkers, by John Weaver, the dancing master at Drury Lane, is cited as the first pantomime produced on the English stage. The same year he produced a pantomime on the subject of Perseus, after this, pantomime was regular feature at Drury Lane. In 1717 at Lincolns Inn, actor and manager John Rich introduced Harlequin into the theatres pantomimes under the name of Lun and he gained great popularity for his pantomimes, especially beginning with his 1724 production of The Necromancer, or, History of Dr. Faustus. These early pantomimes were silent, or dumb show, performances consisting of only dancing, spoken drama was only allowed in London only in the two patent theatres until Parliament changed this restriction in 1843
35.
Ali Baba
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Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. This story is included in versions of the One Thousand and One Nights. In the story, Ali Baba is a woodcutter who discovers the secret of a thieves den. The thieves learn this and try to kill Ali Baba, Ali Baba gives his son to her in marriage and keeps the secret of the treasure. The tale was added to the story collection One Thousand and One Nights by one of its European translators, Antoine Galland, Galland was an 18th-century French Orientalist who may have heard it in oral form from a Middle Eastern story-teller from Aleppo, in modern-day Syria. In any case, the earliest known text of the story is Gallands French version, richard F. Burton included it in the supplemental volumes of his translation and thought its origins were Greek Cypriot. The American Orientalist Duncan Black MacDonald discovered an Arabic-language manuscript of the story at the Bodleian Library, however, Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of a merchant. After their fathers death, the greedy Cassim marries a woman and becomes well-to-do. Ali Baba marries a woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter. One day, Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, the treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic. It opens on the words open sesame and seals itself on the words close sesame, when the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself and discreetly takes a single bag of gold coins home. Ali Baba and his wife borrow his sister-in-laws scales to weigh their new wealth, to her shock, she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave, Cassim goes to the cave, taking a donkey with him to take as much treasure as possible. He enters the cave with the magic words, but in his greed and excitement over the treasure, he forgets the words to get out again. The thieves find him there and kill him, Ali Baba brings the body home where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl from Cassims household, with the task of making others believe that Cassim has died a natural death. First, Morgiana purchases medicines from an apothecary, telling him that Cassim is gravely ill, then, she finds an old tailor known as Baba Mustafa whom she pays, blindfolds, and leads to Cassims house. There, overnight, the tailor stitches the pieces of Cassims body back together so that no one will be suspicious, Ali Baba and his family are able to give Cassim a proper burial without anyones asking awkward questions. The thieves, finding the body gone, realize that yet another person must know their secret, One of the thieves goes down to the town and comes across Baba Mustafa, who mentions that he has just sewn a dead mans body back together
36.
Scrooge McDuck
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Scrooge McDuck is a fictional character created in 1947 by Carl Barks during his time as a work-for-hire for The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an elderly Scottish anthropomorphic Pekin duck with a bill, legs. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses and he is portrayed in animations as speaking with a Scottish accent, also sometimes known as a Scottish burr. Named after Ebenezer Scrooge from the 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is a wealthy Scottish business magnate and he is the maternal uncle of Donald Duck, the grand-uncle of Huey, Dewey and Louie, and a usual financial backer of Gyro Gearloose. Within the context of the fictional Duck universe, he is the worlds richest person and his Money Bin—and indeed Scrooge himself—are often used as a humorous metonyms for great wealth in popular culture around the world. McDuck was initially characterized as a miser and antihero, but in later appearances he was often portrayed as a charitable and thrifty hero, adventurer, explorer. He was originally created by Barks as an antagonist for Donald Duck, however, McDucks popularity grew so large that he became a major figure of the Duck universe. In 1952 he was given his own book series, called Uncle Scrooge. Scrooge was most famously drawn by his creator Carl Barks, like other Disney franchise characters, Scrooge McDucks international popularity has resulted in literature that is often translated into other languages. Comics have remained Scrooges primary medium, although he has appeared in animated cartoons. His appearance may have based on a similar-looking, nameless Scottish character from the 1943 propaganda short The Spirit of 43. In Christmas on Bear Mountain, Scrooge was a bearded, bespectacled, reasonably wealthy old duck, visibly leaning on his cane, Scrooges misanthropic thoughts in this first story are quite pronounced, Here I sit in this big lonely dump, waiting for Christmas to pass. That silly season when everybody loves everybody else, everybody hates me, and I hate everybody. Barks later reflected, Scrooge in Christmas on Bear Mountain was only my first idea of a rich, I had made him too old and too weak. I discovered later on that I had to him more active. I could not make an old guy like that do the things I wanted him to do, Barks would later claim that he originally only intended to use Scrooge as a one-shot character, but then decided Scrooge could prove useful for motivating further stories. Barks continued to experiment with Scrooges appearance and personality over the four years. Foxy Relations was the first story where Scrooge is called by his title, the story, Voodoo Hoodoo, first published in Dells Four Color Comics #238, August 1949, was the first story to hint at Scrooges past with the introduction of two figures from it
37.
Donald Duck
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Donald Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions. Donald is a white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs. He typically wears a shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is most famous for his speech and his mischievous. Along with his friend Mickey Mouse, Donald is one of the most popular Disney characters and was included in TV Guides list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time in 2002. He has appeared in more films than any other Disney character, Donald Duck rose to fame with his comedic roles in animated cartoons. Donalds first appearance was in 1934 in The Wise Little Hen, throughout the next two decades, Donald appeared in over 150 theatrical films, several of which were recognized at the Academy Awards. In the 1930s, he appeared as part of a comic trio with Mickey. These films introduced Donalds love interest Daisy Duck and often included his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, after the 1956 film Chips Ahoy, Donald appeared primarily in educational films before eventually returning to theatrical animation in Mickeys Christmas Carol. His most recent appearance in a film was 1999s Fantasia 2000. Donald has also appeared in features such as Mickey, Donald, Goofy, The Three Musketeers, television series such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Beyond animation, Donald is primarily known for his appearances in comics, Donald was most famously drawn by Al Taliaferro, Carl Barks, and Don Rosa. Barks, in particular, is credited for expanding the Donald Duck universe, the world in which Donald lives. Donald has been a popular character in Europe, particularly in Nordic countries where his weekly magazine Donald Duck & Co was the most popular comics publication from the 1950s to 2009. Disney comics fandom is sometimes referred to as Donaldism, a term originated in Norway. The origins of Donald Ducks name may have inspired by Australian cricket legend Donald Bradman. In 1932 Bradman and the Australian team were touring North America, Walt Disney was in the process of creating a friend for Mickey Mouse when he possibly read about Bradmans dismissal in the papers and decided to name the new character Donald Duck. Voice performer Clarence Nash auditioned for Walt Disney Studios when he learned that Disney was looking for people to create animal sounds for his cartoons, Disney was particularly impressed with Nashs duck imitation and chose him to voice the new character
38.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie
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Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck are triplet cartoon characters created in 1937 by writer Ted Osborne and cartoonist Al Taliaferro, and are owned by The Walt Disney Company. Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the nephews of Donald Duck, like their uncles, the boys are anthropomorphic white ducks with yellow-orange beaks and feet. They typically wear shirts and colorful baseball caps, which are used to differentiate each character. Huey, Dewey and Louie have made several animated appearances in films and television, but comics remain their primary medium. The trio are collectively the 11th most published comic book characters in the world, while the boys were originally created as mischief-makers to provoke Donalds famous temper, later appearances showed them to be valuable assets to him and Scrooge on their adventures. All three of the boys are members of the scouting organization the Junior Woodchucks. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were the idea of Al Taliaferro, the artist for the Silly Symphonies comic strip, which featured Donald Duck. The Walt Disney Productions Story Dept. on February 5,1937, sent Taliaferro a memo recognizing him as the source of the idea for the planned short, Donalds Nephews. The nephews debuted in Taliaferros comic strip, which by this time had been renamed Donald Duck, on Sunday, October 17,1937, beating the theatrical release of Donalds Nephews by almost six months. The names were devised by Disney gag man Dana Coty, who took them from Huey Long, Thomas Dewey, and Louis Schmitt, an animator at the Disney Studio in the 1930s and 1940s. Taliaferros introduction of the nephews emulated the three nephews in the Happy Hooligan comic strip and was influenced by Mickey Mouses nephews, Morty. According to a published Duck family tree, their names are Huebert, Deuteronomy. In both the comics and animated shorts, the parents were never heard from or mentioned again after these instances. All four of them live in the city of Duckburg. The three ducklings are noted for their appearances and personalities. A running joke involves the three sometimes even finishing each others sentences, in the theatrical shorts, Huey, Dewey, and Louie often behave in a rambunctious and mischievous manner, and they sometimes commit retaliation or revenge on their uncle Donald Duck. According to Don Rosa, Huey, Dewey and Louie became members of the Junior Woodchucks when they were around 11 years old, in early comic books and shorts, the caps of Huey, Dewey, and Louie were colored randomly, depending on the whim of the colorist. On few occasions until 1945 and most every cartoon short afterward and it wasnt until the 1980s when it became established that Huey is dressed in red, Dewey in blue, and Louie in green
39.
Beagle Boys
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The Beagle Boys are a group of fictional characters from the Donald Duck universe. Created by Carl Barks, they are a clan of organized criminals who constantly try to rob Scrooge McDuck. Their introduction and first appearance was in Terror of the Beagle Boys and they appear again in the next issue in a similar fashion, in The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill. The Beagle Boys were originally created by Carl Barks, and made their first appearance in the 10-page story The Terror of the Beagle Boys that was first published in November 1951. Although the Beagle Boys are only very briefly on the last page of this story. The Beagle Boys are usually depicted as a gang of six to ten members or more depending on the story. They wear black bandit masks to hide their identities and on their sweaters, most often being orange or red. Interestingly, 176-167s love for prunes makes him the only Beagle Boy with a unique characteristic, in the same story they are called the most awful gang of crooks in the country by Donald Duck. This most often manifests with them coming up with various and elaborate schemes to try to break into. On occasion they are shown to have highly intellectual capacities. Among individual Beagle Boys, some of these include, cranial encephalography, psychology, chemistry. These were often seen by the government as attempts at rehabilitation and they are also experts at trickery, including disguises, and animal training, like using cormorants as aerial bombers, as well as having a large arsenal of various weapons, explosives and machines. When needed, they have shown to be able to use force or threats to get what they want. They are usually imprisoned in Duckburg prisons or Sing Sing, the Beagle Boys are however proud of their criminal background, never willing to live their lives in accordance to the law. The Beagle Boys main goal for stealing Scrooge McDucks money is so they can create a life of luxury for themselves. They have also shown proneness for taking over the world when being presented with such an opportunity, the Beagle Boys are most often shown without an established leader, instead acting as a very coherent and homogeneous unit, and only gives orders between each other interchangeably when needed. However, sometimes the Beagle Boys are led by their grandfather, Blackheart Beagle, the Blackheart character originates from two characters created by Carl Barks, Blackheart Beagle, a riverboat pirate from The Fantastic River Race and Grandpa Beagle, who appeared in The Money Well. It was Don Rosa who later combined the character into one in chapters 10 and 11 of The Life, also according to Rosa, Blackheart Beagle semi-retired in 1947, following a failed attempt at robbing Scrooges Money Bin
40.
Outlaw
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In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the penalty is conspicuously absent. The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, women were declared waived rather than outlawed but it was effectively the same punishment. Among other forms of exile, Roman law included the penalty of interdicere aquae et ignis, people so penalized were required to leave Roman territory and forfeit their property. If they returned, they were effectively outlaws, providing them the use of fire or water was illegal, and they could be killed at will without legal penalty. Interdicere aquae et ignis was traditionally imposed by the tribune of the plebs and it was later also applied by many other officials, such as the Senate, magistrates, and Julius Caesar as a general and provincial governor during the Gallic Wars. It fell out of use during the early Empire, in English common law, an outlaw was a person who had defied the laws of the realm, by such acts as ignoring a summons to court, or fleeing instead of appearing to plead when charged with a crime. Outlawry was a principally pre-Magna Carta phenomenon, the most famous English outlaw was Robin Hood, however, his historical existence is not proved. The term outlawry referred to the procedure of declaring someone an outlaw. In the common law of England, a judgment of outlawry was one of the harshest penalties in the system, since the outlaw could not use the legal system for protection. To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of civil or social death, the outlaw was debarred from all civilized society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any sort of support – to do so was to commit the crime of aiding and abetting. A more recent concept of wanted dead or alive is similar, an outlaw might be killed with impunity, and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill a thief fleeing from justice — to do so was not murder. A man who slew a thief was expected to declare the fact without delay, otherwise the dead man’s kindred might clear his name by their oath and require the slayer to pay weregild as for a true man. By the rules of law, a criminal outlaw did not need to be guilty of the crime for which he was an outlaw. If a man was accused of a treason or felony but failed to appear in court to defend himself, if he was accused of a misdemeanour, then he was guilty of a serious contempt of court which was itself a capital crime. It was obsolete by the time the offence was abolished in 1938, there was also a doctrine of civil outlawry
41.
A Choice of Magic
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A Choice of Magic is a 1971 anthology of 32 fairy tales from around the world that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. In fact, the book is mostly a collection of published in previous Manning-Sanders anthologies. There are also four previously unpublished stories and it is followed by the anthology Folk and Fairy Tales, another collection of previously published Manning-Sanders tales. The Goblins at the Bath House 8, sneezy Snatcher and Sammy Small 14. The Adventures of Billy MacDaniel 19, the Girl Who Picked Strawberries 30
42.
Jonathan Clements
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Jonathan Clements is a British author and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies of Confucius, Koxinga and Qin Shi Huangdi and he is also the co-author of encyclopedias of anime and Japanese television dramas. Clements speaks both Chinese and Japanese, and many of his works relate to East Asia, subsequently he translated over 70 anime and manga works for British distributors, and worked as a voice director and actor. He wrote his PhD at the University of Wales on the history of Japanese animation, later published by the British Film Institute as Anime. He served two years at Titan Books in London as the editor of Manga Max magazine, an experience he would later fictionalise as the Judge Dredd adventure Trapped on Titan. In 2000, he received the Japan Festival Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Understanding of Japanese Culture and he was also an interviewee and consultant on the documentary Koxinga, A Heros Legacy, which drew heavily on his book Pirate King. The name was used as the title to a collection of Clementss articles and speeches. Clements is an author, whose many non-fiction publications, on subjects ranging from the history of the Vikings to the life of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. His books have been translated into a dozen languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Korean
