Attica
Attica is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea, the modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes the Saronic Islands and the municipality of Troizinia on the Peloponnesian mainland. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, Attica is a triangular peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea. It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the 10 mi long Cithaeron mountain range, to the west, it is bordered by the sea and the canal of Corinth. The Saronic Gulf lies to the south, and the island of Euboea lies off the north, mountains separate the peninsula into the plains of Pedias and Thriasion. The mountains of Attica are the Hymettus, the portion of the Geraneia, the Parnitha, the Aigaleo. Four mountains—Aigaleo, Parnitha and Hymettus —delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens-Piraeus metroplex now spreads, Athens water reservoir, Lake Marathon, is an artificial lake created by damming in 1920.
Pine and fir forests cover the area around Parnitha, Penteli and Laurium are forested with pine trees, whereas the rest are covered by shrubbery. The Kifisos is the longest river of Attica, according to Plato, Atticas ancient boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, toward the continent, they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes. The boundary line came down toward the sea, bounded by the district of Oropus on the right, during antiquity, the Athenians boasted about being autochthonic, which is to say that they were the original inhabitants of the area and had not moved to Attica from another place. The traditions current in the classical period recounted that, during the Greek Dark Ages, Attica had become the refuge of the Ionians, who belonged to a tribe from the northern Peloponnese. Supposedly, the Ionians had been forced out of their homeland by the Achaeans, the Ionians integrated with the ancient Atticans, afterward, considered themselves part of the Ionian tribe and spoke the Ionian dialect.
Many Ionians left Attica to colonize the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, during the Mycenaean period, the Atticans lived in autonomous agricultural societies. The main places where prehistoric remains were found are Marathon, Nea Makri, Thorikos, Agios Kosmas, Menidi, Spata, all of these settlements flourished during the Mycenaean period. According to tradition, Attica comprised twelve small communities during the reign of Cecrops, strabo assigns these the names of Cecropia, Epacria, Eleusis, Thoricus, Cytherus, Sphettus and possibly Phaleron. These were said to have been incorporated in an Athenian state during the reign of Theseus. Modern historians consider it likely that the communities were progressively incorporated into an Athenian state during the 8th. Until the 6th century BC, aristocratic families lived independent lives in the suburbs, only after Peisistratoss tyranny and the reforms implemented by Cleisthenes did the local communities lose their independence and succumb to the central government in Athens
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American songwriter, singer and writer. He has been influential in music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when his songs chronicled social unrest, early songs such as Blowin in the Wind and The Times They Are a-Changin became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. Leaving behind his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single Like a Rolling Stone, recorded in 1965, Dylans lyrics incorporate a wide range of political, social and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture, initially inspired by the performances of Little Richard and the songwriting of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, Dylan has amplified and personalized musical genres. Dylan performs with guitar and harmonica, backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.
His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, since 1994, Dylan has published seven books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records and he has received numerous awards including eleven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a citation for his profound impact on popular music and American culture. In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St. Marys Hospital on May 24,1941, in Duluth, Minnesota and he has a younger brother, David.
Dylans paternal grandparents and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa, in the Russian Empire and his maternal grandparents and Florence Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. Dylans father, Abram Zimmerman – an electric-appliance shop owner – and mother, Beatrice Beatty Stone, were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community. They lived in Duluth until Robert was six, when his father had polio and the returned to his mothers hometown, Hibbing. In his early years he listened to the radio—first to blues and country stations from Shreveport and and he formed several bands while attending Hibbing High School. In the Golden Chords, he performed covers of songs by Little Richard and their performance of Danny & the Juniors Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone. In 1959, his high school yearbook carried the caption Robert Zimmerman, the same year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and clapping
Funicular
Funiculars of one sort or another have existed for hundreds of years and continue to be used for moving both passengers and goods. Its name derives from the latin, diminutive of funis, the basic idea of funicular operation is that two cars are always attached to each other by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the top of the slope. Counterbalancing of the two cars, with one going up and one going down, minimizes the energy needed to lift the car going up, winching is normally done by an electric drive that turns the pulley. Sheave wheels guide the cable to and from the drive mechanism, early funiculars used two parallel straight tracks, four rails, with separate station platforms for each vehicle. The tracks are laid with sufficient space between them for the two cars to pass at the midpoint, the wheels of the cars are usually single-flanged, as on standard railway vehicles. Examples of this type of track layout are the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, layouts that require less width have been developed, with only two or three rails for the most part of the slope and four rails only at the passing section.
In layouts using three rails, the rail is shared by both cars. The three-rail layout is wider than the layout, but the passing section is simpler to build. If a rack for braking is used, that rack can be mounted higher in a three-rail layout, some four-rail funiculars have the upper and lower sections interlaced and a single platform at each station. The Hill Train at Legoland, Windsor, is an example of this configuration, until the end of the 1870s, the four-rail parallel-track funicular was the normal configuration. Carl Roman Abt developed the Abt Switch allowing the two-rail layout, in the United States, the first funicular to use a two-rail layout was the Telegraph Hill Railroad in San Francisco, which was in operation from 1884 until 1886. The Mount Lowe Railway in Altadena, was the first mountain railway in the United States to use the three-rail layout, three- and two-rail layouts considerably reduced the space required for building a funicular, reducing grading costs on mountain slopes and property costs for urban funiculars.
These layouts enabled a funicular boom in the half of the 19th century. The cars can be attached to a cable running through a pulley at the bottom of the incline in case the gravity force acting on the vehicles is too low to operate them on the slope. One of the pulleys must be designed as a wheel to avoid slack in the ropes. In this case, the winching can be done at the end of the incline. Funiculars used in mines were sometimes unpowered gravity planes, known as self-acting inclines or brake inclines, the weight of descending loaded wagons was used to pull the empty mine wagons. A few funiculars have been using water tanks under the floor of each car that are filled or emptied until just sufficient imbalance is achieved to allow movement
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey, professionally known as Morrissey, is an English singer and author. He rose to prominence as the singer of the indie rock band The Smiths. Since then, Morrissey has had a career, making the top ten of the UK Singles Chart on ten occasions. Born in Davyhulme, Lancashire, to a working-class Irish migrant family, as a child he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism and popular music. Involved in Manchesters punk rock scene during the late 1970s, he fronted The Nosebleeds, beginning a career in music journalism, he authored a number of books on music and film in the early 1980s. With Johnny Marr he established The Smiths in 1982, soon attracting national recognition for their debut album. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in The Smiths separation in 1987, in 1988, Morrissey launched his solo career with the album Viva Hate. This and its follow-up albums – Bona Drag, Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, in the mid-to-late 1990s, his subsequent albums, Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted, charted but were less well received.
After a hiatus between 1998 and 2003, Morrissey released a comeback album, You Are the Quarry. Relocating to Italy, ensuing years saw the release of albums Ringleader of the Tormentors, Years of Refusal, in 2013 Morrissey released his autobiography, followed by his first novel in 2015. Highly influential, Morrissey is widely credited as being a figure in the emergence of indie rock. He has been acclaimed as one of the greatest lyricists in British history, in a 2006 poll held by the BBCs Culture Show, Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon. Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22 May 1959, at Park Hospital and his parents – Elizabeth and Peter Morrissey – were working-class Irish Catholics. They had emigrated to Manchester from Dublin with his sibling, elder sister Jacqueline. They had given him the forename of Steven after the American actor Steve Cochran and his earliest home was a council house at 17 Harper Street in the Hulme area of inner Manchester. He became aware of the sentiment in British society against Irish migrants to Britain.
In 1970 the family relocated to another house at 384 Kings Road. Following an early education at St. Wilfreds Primary School, Morrissey failed his 11-plus exam, and proceeded to St. Marys Technical Modern School and he excelled at athletics, although he was an unpopular loner at the school
Acropolis of Athens
The word acropolis comes from the Greek words ἄκρον and πόλις. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is known as The Acropolis without qualification. The Acropolis is located on a rock that rises 150 m above sea level in the city of Athens. It was known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, while the earliest artifacts date to the Middle Neolithic era, there have been documented habitations in Attica from the Early Neolithic. There is little doubt that a Mycenaean megaron stood upon the hill during the late Bronze Age, nothing of this megaron survives except, probably, a single limestone column-base and pieces of several sandstone steps. Soon after the palace was constructed, a Cyclopean massive circuit wall was built,760 meters long, up to 10 meters high and this wall would serve as the main defense for the acropolis until the 5th century. The wall consisted of two built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called emplekton.
There were two lesser approaches up the hill on its side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he mentions the strong-built House of Erechtheus, at some point before the 13th century BC, an earthquake caused a fissure near the northeastern edge of the Acropolis. This fissure extended some 35 meters to a bed of marl in which a well was dug. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the served as an invaluable. There is no evidence for the existence of a Mycenean palace on top of the Athenian Acropolis. However, if there was such a palace, it seems to have been supplanted by building activity, not a lot is known about the architectural appearance of the Acropolis until the Archaic era. In the 7th and the 6th centuries BC, the site was taken over by Kylon during the failed Kylonian revolt, nevertheless, it seems that a nine-gate wall, the Enneapylon, had been built around the biggest water spring, the Clepsydra, at the northwestern foot.
A temple to Athena Polias, the deity of the city, was erected around 570–550 BC. Whether this temple replaced an older one, or just a sacred precinct or altar, is not known, the Hekatompedon was built where the Parthenon now stands. Between 529–520 BC yet another temple was built by the Peisistratids and this temple of Athena Polias was built upon the Doerpfeld foundations, between the Erechtheion and the still-standing Parthenon. Arkhaios Neōs was destroyed by the Persian invasion in 480 BC, the temple may have been burnt down in 406/405 BC as Xenophon mentions that the old temple of Athena was set on fire
UB40
UB40 are an English reggae and pop band, formed in December 1978 in Birmingham, England. The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart and they have been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album four times, and in 1984 were nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Group. One of the worlds best-selling music artists, UB40 have sold over 70 million records, the ethnic make-up of the bands original line-up was diverse, with musicians of English, Jamaican and Yemeni parentage. Their hit singles include their debut Food for Thought and two Billboard Hot 100 number ones with Red Red Wine and Cant Help Falling in Love, both of these topped the UK Singles Chart, as did the bands version of I Got You Babe. Their two most successful albums, Labour of Love and Promises and Lies, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart. The bands line-up was stable for nearly 29 years, from March 1979 until January 2008, another member, remained with the band until November 2013, when he departed the original band to team up with Campbell and Virtue in a new version of UB40.
In 2014, legal advice was sought by the band against the group containing Campbell, Virtue. The band members began as friends who each other from various schools across Birmingham. The name UB40 was selected in reference to the document issued to people claiming unemployment benefit from the UK governments Department of Employment at the time of the bands formation. The designation UB40 stood for Unemployment Benefit, Form 40, following a serious assault on Ali Campbell, he received a hefty compensation package which he put towards funding musical instruments for the fledgling band members. They were soon joined by several of their friends, firstly percussionists Yomi Babayemi and Norman Hassan, prior to this, Travers had work as an electrical apprentice for NG Bailey, whilst Robin Campbell had been an apprentice toolmaker. A month UB40s classic lineup was rounded out with the inclusion of percussionist and vocalist Astro, Astro had previously been working for Duke Alloys sound system attending reggae dances in Birmingham.
Before some of them could play their instruments, Ali Campbell and Brian Travers travelled around Birmingham promoting the band and their sound was created and honed through many long jam sessions at various locations in Birmingham. Their first gig took place on 9 February 1979 at The Hare & Hounds Pub in Kings Heath and this was commemorated in October 2011 by the unveiling of a plaque at the venue, indicating the band receiving the Performing Rights Societys Music Heritage Award. UB40 caught their first break when Chrissie Hynde saw them at a pub and gave them an opportunity as an act to her band. UB40s first single, King/Food for Thought was released on Graduate Records and it reached No.4 on the UK Singles Chart. The title of their first album, Signing Off, indicates the band was signing off from, or ending and it was recorded in a bedsit in Birmingham and was produced by Bob Lamb. Norman Hassan said of the recording, if you stripped my track down and this is because his tracks were recorded outside in the garden
Gary Moore
Robert William Gary Moore was a Northern Irish musician, most widely recognised as a singer and virtuoso rock and blues guitarist. He guested on a number of albums recorded by high-profile musicians, Moore grew up on Castleview Road opposite Stormont Parliament Buildings, off the Upper Newtownards Road in east Belfast, as one of five children of Bobby, a promoter, and Winnie, a housewife. He left the city as a teenager, because of troubles in his family – his parents parted a year – just as The Troubles were starting in Northern Ireland. Moore started performing at an age, having picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of eight. He got his first quality guitar at the age of 14, aiming to become a musician, he moved to Dublin at the age of 16. Moores greatest influence in the days was guitarist Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac who was a mentor to Moore when performing in Dublin. Greens continued influence on Moore was repaid as a tribute to Green on his 1995 album Blues for Greeny, on this tribute album, Moore played Greens 1959 Les Paul Standard guitar which Green had lent to Moore after leaving Fleetwood Mac.
Moore ultimately purchased the guitar, at Greens request, so that it would have a good home, other early musical influences were artists such as Albert King, Elvis Presley, The Shadows, Buddy Guy, and The Beatles. In Dublin, Moore joined the group Skid Row with Noel Bridgeman and Brendan Brush Shiels and it was with this group that he earned a reputation in the music industry, and his association with Phil Lynott began. In 1970, Moore moved to England and remained there, apart from two periods in the United States. In 1973, under the name The Gary Moore Band, he released his first solo album, Grinding Stone was issued in North America on Neil Kempfer-Stockers fledgling record label imprint Cosmos and received Album of the Year accolades on KTAC-FM/Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, in 1974. In 1974 he re-joined Lynott, when he first joined Thin Lizzy after the departure of founding member Eric Bell, from 1975 to August 1978, he was a member of Colosseum II. With the band he collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the composers Variations album in 1978, in 1977, Moore re-joined Thin Lizzy, first as a temporary replacement for Brian Robertson, and on a permanent basis a year later.
In July 1979, he left the band permanently to focus on his solo career, Moore appears in the videos for Waiting for an Alibi, With Love and Do Anything You Want To. He experimented with musical genres, including rock, blues, electric blues, hard rock. In 1987, he performed a solo for a cover of the Beatles Let It Be which was released under the group-name of Ferry Aid. The record raised substantial funds for the survivors of the MS Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, in 1990, he played the lead guitar solo on Shes My Baby from Traveling Wilburys Vol.3. After a series of records, Moore returned to blues music with Still Got the Blues, with contributions from Albert King, Albert Collins
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, formed in 1979. Before settling on their current moniker in 1982, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men, bassist Billy Gould and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest remaining members of the band, having been involved with Faith No More since its inception. The band underwent several lineup changes early in their career, along with major changes on. The current lineup of Faith No More consists of Gould, keyboardist Roddy Bottum, guitarist Jon Hudson, after releasing six studio albums, Faith No More officially announced their breakup on April 20,1998. They have since reunited, embarked on The Second Coming Tour from 2009 to 2012, Faith No More was originally formed as Sharp Young Men in 1979 by bassist Billy Gould, drummer Mike Bordin, vocalist Mike Morris, and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Mike Morris described the name as a piss-take on all the groups at the time. Later on Morris proposed the name Faith In No Man but eventually the band settled on Bordins suggestion Faith No Man and they recorded Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty, released in 1983.
They changed their name to Faith No Man for the release of the single, Bottum and Bordin quit the band shortly after and formed Faith No More. They chose the name to accentuate the fact that The Man was No More and they didnt have any constant guitarists or vocalists until they eventually settled on Chuck Mosley in 1983 and Jim Martin. After the name change, the band started recording We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money. It was the first official release for both the band and the label, in late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently sold to the Warner Music Group subsidiary London Records. Introduce Yourself was released in 1987, and a version of their debut albums title track We Care a Lot saw minor success on MTV. Mosleys behaviour had started to increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe, Billy Gould reflected There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs.
It was just so far off the mark, the upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I Just said, ‘I’m done – I can’t take this any longer, the same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said, ‘Well, I still want to play with you’. It was another one of these ‘firing somebody without firing them’ scenarios, Chuck Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period 66 Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, the Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide. The Cretaceous was a period with a warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles and rudists, during this time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the name Cretaceous was derived from Latin creta, meaning chalk. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs, or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series, in older literature the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series, Neocomian and Senonian.
A subdivision in eleven stages, all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide, in many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds of the Cretaceous are well identified. No great extinction or burst of diversity separates the Cretaceous from the Jurassic and this layer has been dated at 66.043 Ma. A140 Ma age for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary instead of the usually accepted 145 Ma was proposed in 2014 based on a study of Vaca Muerta Formation in Neuquén Basin. Víctor Ramos, one of the authors of the study proposing the 140 Ma boundary age sees the study as a first step toward formally changing the age in the International Union of Geological Sciences, due to the high sea level there was extensive space for such sedimentation. Because of the young age and great thickness of the system. Chalk is a type characteristic for the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths, microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores, the group is found in England, northern France, the low countries, northern Germany, Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea.
Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of sediments in many places. The group has other limestones and arenites, among the fossils it contains are sea urchins, belemnites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus. In southern Europe, the Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson, known professionally as Ray Charles, was an American singer-songwriter and composer. Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called Brother Ray and he was often referred to as The Genius. Charles was blind from the age of seven and he pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining blues and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of music and blues and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a record company. Charles cited Nat King Cole as an influence, but his music was influenced by country, blues. In the late forties, he became friends with Quincy Jones and their friendship would last till the end of Charless life. Frank Sinatra called him the true genius in show business. In 2002, Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Billy Joel observed, This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley.
Robinson was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, at the time, she was a teenage orphan making a living as a sharecropper. They lived in Greenville, with Robinsons mother and his wife, the Robinson family had informally adopted Aretha, and she became known as Aretha Robinson. When she, became pregnant by Bailey, she briefly left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be family members in Albany, Georgia. After that and child returned to Greenville, and Aretha and he was deeply devoted to his mother and recalled her perseverance, self-sufficiency, and pride as guiding lights in his life. His father abandoned the family, left Greenville, and took another wife elsewhere, in his early years, Charles showed a fondness about mechanical objects and would often watch his neighbors working on their cars and farm machinery. Charles and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe, pitman would care for Rays brother George, to take the burden off Aretha. George drowned in Arethas laundry tub when he was four years old, Charles started to lose his sight at the age of four or five, and was completely blind by the age of seven, apparently as a result of glaucoma.
Destitute and still mourning the loss of George, Aretha used her connections in the community to find a school that would accept a blind African-American student. Despite his initial protest, Charles attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf, Charles further developed his musical talent at school, and was taught to play the classical piano music of J. S
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Lykavittos
