1.
Film
–
A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
2.
The Story of the Kelly Gang
–
The Story of the Kelly Gang is a 1906 Australian silent film that traces the exploits of 19th-century bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang. It was directed by Charles Tait and shot in and around the city of Melbourne, the film ran for more than an hour with a reel length of about 1,200 metres, making it the longest narrative film yet seen in the world. It was first shown at Melbournes Athenaeum Hall on 26 December 1906, a commercial and critical success, it is regarded as the origin point of the bushranging drama, a genre that dominated the early years of Australian film production. Since its release, many films have been made about the Kelly legend. In 2007, The Story of the Kelly Gang was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register for being the worlds first full-length narrative feature film, historian Ian Jones suggests bushranger stories still had an indefinable appeal for Australians in the early 20th century. The Story of the Kelly Gang was made by a consortium of two involved in theatre—entrepreneurs John Tait and Nevin Tait, and pioneering film exhibitors Millard Johnson. The Tait family owned the Melbourne Athenaeum Hall and part of their concert program often included short films, Melbourne film exhibitors Johnson and Gibson also had technical experience, including developing film stock. Credit for writing the scenario is generally given to brothers Frank, John. Unfortunately, with the passage of time and the desire to make a story of it they created a maze of contradictory information. There is evidence that at least one other bushranging film had made before 1906. This was Joseph Perrys 1904 short Bushranging in North Queensland, made by the Salvation Armys Limelight Department in Melbourne, one of the worlds first film studios, there is considerable uncertainty over who appeared in the film and a number of unsubstantiated claims have been made regarding participation. In her memoirs, Viola Tait claimed the part of Ned was played by a Canadian stunt actor, shooting of the film reportedly involved a budget variously estimated between £400 and £1,000 and took six months. Worked without a scenario, and pieced the story together as he went along, lincoln also claimed that the principal characters were played by the promoters and their relatives, who certainly made no pretensions to any great histrionic talent. Viola Taits memoirs, published in the early 1970s, identifies Charles as being chosen as director because of his theatrical experience and her account confirmed that many of the extended Tait family and their friends appeared in scenes. Much of the film was shot on the property of Elizabeth Taits family at Heidelberg, other scenes in the film may have been shot in the suburbs of St Kilda, and possibly Eltham, Greensborough, Mitcham, and Rosanna. The Victoria Railways Department assisted by providing a train, costumes were possibly borrowed from E. I. Coles Bohemian Company, and members of the troupe may have performed in the film. According to Viola Tait, Sir Rupert Clarke loaned the suit of Kelly armour his family owned for use in the film
3.
35 mm film
–
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for motion pictures and chemical still photography. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, the standard negative pulldown for movies is four perforations per frame along both edges, which results in 16 frames per foot of film. For still photography, the frame has eight perforations on each side. This resulted in cameras, projectors, and other equipment having to be calibrated to each gauge, the 35 mm width, originally specified as 1.375 inches, was introduced in 1892 by William Dickson and Thomas Edison, using film stock supplied by George Eastman. The gauge has been versatile in application, Eastman Kodak, Fujifilm and Agfa-Gevaert are some companies which offered 35 mm films. Today Kodak is the last remaining manufacturer of motion picture film and it is difficult to compare the quality of film to digital media but a good estimate would be about 20.8 million total pixels would equal one 35 millimeter high quality color frame of film. In 1880, George Eastman began to manufacture gelatin dry plates in Rochester. Along with W. H. Walker, Eastman invented a holder for a roll of picture-carrying gelatin layer coated paper, hannibal Goodwins invention of nitrocellulose film base in 1887 was the first transparent, flexible film. With the advent of film, Thomas Alva Edison quickly set out on his invention, the Kinetoscope. The Kinetoscope was a loop system intended for one-person viewing. Edison, along with assistant W. K. L. Dickson, followed that up with the Kinetophone, beginning in March 1892, Eastman and then, from April 1893 into 1896, New Yorks Blair Camera Co. supplied Edison with film stock. Edisons aperture defined a single frame of film at 4 perforations high, a court judgment in March 1902 invalidated Edisons claim, allowing any producer or distributor to use the Edison 35 mm film design without license. Filmmakers were already doing so in Britain and Europe, where Edison had failed to file patents, at the time, film stock was usually supplied unperforated and punched by the filmmaker to their standards with perforation equipment. A variation developed by the Lumière Brothers used a circular perforation on each side of the frame towards the middle of the horizontal axis.33 aspect ratio. Spehr describes the importance of these developments, The early acceptance of 35 mm as a standard had momentous impact on the development and spread of cinema. The film format was introduced into still photography as early as 1913 but first became popular with the launch of the Leica camera, created by Oskar Barnack in 1925. The costly image-forming silver compounds in a film stocks emulsion meant from the start that 35 mm filmmaking was to be a hobby with a high barrier to entry for the public at large. Furthermore, the film base of all early film stock was highly flammable
4.
Sound film
–
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s, at first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as talking pictures, or talkies, were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects, the first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon, in the United States, they helped secure Hollywoods position as one of the worlds most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence. In Europe, the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, in Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the element that led to the rapid expansion of the nations film industry. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27,1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a peep-show system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection and these appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition, three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization, pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity, cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons
5.
Bushranger
–
By the 1820s, the term bushranger had evolved to refer to those who abandoned social rights and privileges to take up robbery under arms as a way of life, using the bush as their base. Bushranging thrived during the rush years of the 1850s and 1860s when the likes of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner. In other infamous cases, such as that of Dan Morgan, the Clarke brothers, the number of bushrangers declined due to better policing and improvements in rail transport and communication technology, such as telegraphy. Kellys capture and execution in 1880 effectively represented the end of the bushranging era, bushranging exerted a powerful influence in Australia, lasting for almost a century and covering much of the continent. Its origins in a convict system bred a kind of desperado. Native-born bushrangers also expressed nascent Australian nationalist views and are recognised as the first distinctively Australian characters to gain general recognition, as such, many bushrangers became folk heroes and symbols of rebellion against the authorities, admired for their bravery, rough chivalry and colourful personalities. For these and other reasons, attitudes to bushrangers in Australia are at times complex, from this time onwards, the term was used to denote criminals who attacked people on the roads or in the bush. John Bigge described bushranging in 1821 as absconding in the woods and living upon plunder, charles Darwin likewise recorded in 1835 that a bushranger was an open villain who subsists by highway robbery, and will sooner be killed than taken alive. Over 2,000 bushrangers are estimated to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters, bushranging began soon after British colonisation with the establishment of Sydney, New South Wales as a penal colony in 1788. The majority of early bushrangers were convicts who had escaped prison and these bushrangers, also known as bolters, preferred the hazards of wild, unexplored bushland surrounding Sydney to the deprivation and brutality of convict life. The first bushranger gang, led by African convict John Caesar, robbed settlers for food, Aboriginal trackers would play a significant role in the hunt for bushrangers. Colonel Godfrey Mundy described convict bushrangers as desperate, hopeless, fearless, rendered so, perhaps, by the tyranny of a gaoler, of an overseer, or of a master to whom he has been assigned. Liberty or Death. was the cry of convict bushrangers, and in numbers they roamed beyond Sydney, some hoping to reach China. Bolters such as the Norfolk Island mutineers seized boats and set sail for foreign lands, others attempted to inspire an overhaul of the convict system, or simply sought revenge on their captors. This latter desire found expression in the convict ballad Jim Jones at Botany Bay, in which Jones, Donahue was the most notorious bushranger of the 1820s, terrorising settlements outside Sydney from 1827 until he was fatally shot by a trooper in 1830. That same year, west of the Blue Mountains, brutalised convict Ralph Entwistle sparked a bushranging insurgency known as the Bathurst Rebellion and he and his gang raided farms, liberating assigned convicts by force in the process, and within a month, his personal army numbered 130 bushrangers. Following battles with vigilante posses, mounted policemen and soldiers of the 39th Regiment of Foot, he, convict bushrangers were particularly prevalent in the penal colony of Van Diemens Land, established in 1803. He was killed by soldiers in 1818, other notorious Vandemonian bolters include the cannibal serial killers Thomas Jeffries and Alexander Pearce
6.
Passion Play
–
The Passion Play or Easter pageant is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ, his trial, suffering and death. It is a part of Lent in several Christian denominations. The development of the Passion Play was about the same as that of the Easter Drama and it originated in the ritual of the Church, which prescribes, among other things, that the Gospel on Good Friday should be sung in parts divided among various persons. Thus, the Benedictbeurn Passion Play is still composed of Latin ritual sentences in prose and of church hymns. Yet even this oldest of the Passion Plays already shows a tendency to break away from the ritual and to adopt a more dramatic form. From these humble beginnings the Passion Play developed very rapidly, since in the century it was at a stage of development which could not have been reached except by repeated practice. From this second period we have the Vienna Passion, the St. Gall Passion, the oldest Frankfort Passion, all four Plays, as they are commonly called, are written in rhyme, principally in German. The oldest Frankfort Passion play, that of Canon Baldemar von Peterwell, of this play only the Ordo sive Registrum has come down to us, a long roll of parchment for the use of the director, containing stage directions and the first words of the dialogues. The plays based on this list of directions lead us to the period in which the Passion Play reached its highest development, during this period the later Frankfort Passion Play, the Alsfelder, and the Friedberger originated. Nearly all these Passion Plays have some relation to those coming from the Tyrol, some contributing to, others taking from and these, again, are founded upon the Tyrolese Passion play which originated during the transition period of the fourteenth to the fifteenth century. Historian J. E. Wackernell, with the aid of the plays that have reached us, has reconstructed this period, in Tyrol the Passion Plays received elaborate cultivation, at Bolzano they were presented with great splendour and, in 1514, lasted no less than seven days. Here, too, the innovation of placing the female roles in the hands of women was introduced, the citizens and civil authorities considered it a point of honour to render the production as rich and diversified as possible. Ordinarily the preparations for the play were in the hands of a spiritual brotherhood, people of the most varied classes took part in the production, and frequently the number of actors was as high as two hundred and even greater. If was undoubtedly no small task to drill the performers, particularly since the stage arrangements were very primitive. The stage was a structure, almost as broad as it was long, elevated but slightly above the ground. A house formed the background, an attached to the house represented Heaven. Under the balcony three crosses were erected, sometimes the stage was divided into three sections by doors. Along the sides of the stage, taken lengthwise, stood the houses required for the production, they were indicated by fenced-in spaces, or by four posts upon which a roof rested
7.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
8.
Oliver Twist
–
Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boys Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens and was first published as a serial 1837–39. The story is of the orphan Oliver Twist, who starts his life in a workhouse and is sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. He escapes from there and travels to London, where he meets the Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal by Dickens of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century. The alternate title, The Parish Boys Progress, alludes to Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rakes Progress and A Harlots Progress. In this early example of the novel, Dickens satirizes the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals. The novel may have inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe. It is likely that Dickenss own youthful experiences contributed as well, Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous adaptations for various media, including a highly successful musical play, Oliver. and the multiple Academy Award-winning 1968 motion picture. Disney also put its spin on the novel with the movie called Oliver & Company in 1988, the novel was originally published in monthly installments in the Magazine Bentleys Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839. It was originally intended to form part of Dickenss serial, The Mudfog Papers, george Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each installment. It included 24 steel-engraved plates by Cruikshank, the first edition was titled, Oliver Twist, or, The Parish Boys Progress. Oliver is brought up with food and few comforts. Around the time of Olivers ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots, the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes up forward, bowl in hand, the board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer £5 to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. Mr. Gamfield, a chimney sweep, almost claims Oliver. However, when he begs not to be sent away with that dreadful man. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish and he treats Oliver better and, because of the boys sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at childrens funerals. In trying to bait Oliver, Noah insults Olivers biological mother, calling her a regular right-down bad un. Oliver flies into a rage, once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he breaks down and weeps, upset at the events which he had faced
9.
Cinema of India
–
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India. Cinema as a medium has gained popularity in the country. Indian films have come to be followed throughout South Asia. Dadasaheb Phalke is known as the father of Indian cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honour, by the Government of India in 1969, and is the most prestigious and coveted award in Indian cinema. In the 20th century, Indian cinema, along with the Hollywood and Chinese film industries, as of 2013, in terms of annual film output, India ranks first, followed by Nollywood, Hollywood and China. In 2012, India produced 1,602 feature films, the Indian film industry reached overall revenues of $1.86 billion in 2011. This is projected to rise to $3 billion in 2016, in 2015, India had a total box office of US$1.6 billion, the fourth largest in the world outside North America. Enhanced technology paved the way for upgrading from established norms of delivering product. Visual effects based, super hero science fiction, and epic films like Enthiran, Baahubali, Indian cinema found markets in over 90 countries where films from India are screened. The Indian government extended film delegations to countries such as the United States of America. The provision of 100% foreign direct investment has made the Indian film market attractive for foreign enterprises such as 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, tax incentives to multiplexes have aided the multiplex boom in India. By 2003 as many as 30 film production companies had been listed in the National Stock Exchange of India, the South Indian film industry defines the four film cultures of South India as a single entity. They are the Tamil, the Telugu, the Malayalam and the Kannada industries, although developed independently over a long period, gross exchange of film performers and technicians as well as globalisation helped to shape this new identity. Music in Indian cinema is another substantial revenue generator with the music rights alone accounting for 4–5% of the net revenues generated by a film in India. Following the screening of the Lumière moving pictures in London, cinema became a sensation across Europe, in the next year a film presentation by one Professor Stevenson featured a stage show at Calcuttas Star Theatre. With Stevensons encouragement and camera Hiralal Sen, an Indian photographer, made a film of scenes from that show, the Wrestlers by H. S. Bhatavdekar showing a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay was the first film ever to be shot by an Indian. It was also the first Indian documentary film, the first Indian film released in India was Shree Pundalik a silent film in Marathi by Dadasaheb Torne on 18 May 1912 at Coronation Cinematograph, Bombay. The female roles in the film were played by male actors, the film marked a historic benchmark in the film industry in India
10.
The Birth of a Nation
–
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed and co-produced by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from the novel and play The Clansman and it was released on February 8,1915. Three hours long, the film was presented in two parts separated by an intermission, it was the first 12-reel film in America. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth is dramatized, there were widespread African-American protests against The Birth of a Nation, such as in Boston, while thousands of white Bostonians flocked to see the film. The NAACP spearheaded a campaign to ban the film. Griffiths indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce Intolerance the following year. The films release is credited as being one of the events that inspired the formation of the second era Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia. The Birth of a Nation, along with the trial and lynching of Leo Frank for the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan in Atlanta, was used as a tool for the KKK. Under President Woodrow Wilson, it was the first American motion picture to be screened at the White House, Griffiths innovative techniques and storytelling power have made The Birth of a Nation one of the landmarks of film history. In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, the film follows two juxtaposed families. One is the Northern Stonemans, abolitionist U. S, representative Austin Stoneman, his daughter, and two sons. The other is the Southern Camerons, Dr. Cameron is married to his wife, the couple also has three sons and two daughters. Phil, the elder Stoneman son, falls in love with Margaret Cameron, while the visit to the the Cameron estate in South Carolina. Meanwhile, young Ben Cameron idolizes a picture of Elsie Stoneman, during the Civil War, the young men from both families enlist in their respective armies for the war. The younger Stoneman and two of the Cameron brothers are killed in the war, meanwhile, the Cameron women are rescued by Confederate soldiers who rout a Black militia, after an attack on the Cameron home. Ben Cameron leads a charge at the Siege of Petersburg. But he is wounded and captured. He is then taken to a Union hospital in Washington, D. C, during his stay at the hospital, he is told that he will be hanged
11.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
12.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
