1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
General knowledge
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General knowledge has been defined in differential psychology as culturally valued knowledge communicated by a range of non-specialist media and encompassing a wide subject range. This definition excludes highly specialized learning that can only be obtained with extensive training, general knowledge is an important component of crystallized intelligence and is strongly associated with general intelligence, and with openness to experience. Studies have found people who are highly knowledgeable in a particular domain tend to be knowledgeable in many. General knowledge is thought to be supported by long-term semantic memory ability, a number of studies have found that males tend to have greater general knowledge than females, perhaps due to gender differences in interests rather than memory ability. Recent studies have found that knowledge is associated with exam performance in schoolchildren. Differential psychology researchers define general knowledge as culturally valued knowledge communicated by a range of non-specialist media, the scope of this definition includes all areas of knowledge available to laypersons without requiring extensive training. The definition excludes ephemera, or information confined to a single medium, Researchers have identified 20 domains of knowledge that meet the above criteria, Researchers have acknowledged that other domains of general knowledge may exist. Factor analysis suggested that the 20 domains could be categorised into six factors, current affairs, fashion, family, physical health and recreation, arts, all six of these factors were highly intercorrelated and were all related to a single higher-order general knowledge factor. High scorers on tests of general knowledge tend to score highly on intelligence tests. IQ has been found to predict general knowledge scores even after accounting for differences in age, sex. In the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of intelligence, general knowledge is considered a component of crystallized intelligence, standardized IQ tests may therefore include measures of general knowledge, such as in the information subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. General knowledge is also associated with verbal ability, though only weakly or not at all with numerical and spatial ability. As with crystallized intelligence, general knowledge has been found to increase with age, due to the positive intercorrelations between knowledge domains, individual differences in general knowledge may reflect differences in ability to retrieve information from long-term semantic memory. A general factor of long-term semantic memory could be explained by the existence of an underlying neurophysiological process responsible for retaining information in long-term memory, individual differences in the efficiency of such processes might explain why all domains of semantic memory appear to be intercorrelated. People high in general tend to be highly open to new experiences. The relationship between openness to experience and general knowledge remains robust even when IQ is taken into account, people high in openness may be more motivated to engage in intellectual pursuits that increase their knowledge. Relationships between general knowledge and other five factor model traits tend to be weak and inconsistent, though one study found that extraversion and neuroticism were negatively correlated with general knowledge, others found that they were unrelated. Inconsistent results have also found for conscientiousness
3.
Scott Fetzer Company
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The Kirby Company is a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and home cleaning accessories, based in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is a division of The Scott Fetzer Company which in turn is part of Berkshire Hathaway, dealers are located in over 50 countries throughout the world. Kirbys products are sold via in-home door-to-door demonstrations. The Kirby Company is a member of the Direct Selling Association, the first Kirby vacuums were designed by James B. Kirby for George Scott and Carl Fetzer after World War I, although the Kirby name was not used on a vacuum cleaner until the 1930s. James Kirby invented the vacuette circa 1920, the Vacuette Electric, introduced in 1925 with its removable floor nozzle and handle, became the forerunner of todays multi-attachment Kirby vacuum models. In 1935, the introduced the Kirby Model C, the first product to carry Jim Kirbys name. From 1935 through the 1960s, continuous improvements and refinements were made to the Kirby home care system, the last model of this first generation, the Dual Sanitronic 80, was produced in 1967 and still resembled the original. In 1970, input from Kirby distributors, dealers, management, the model was an instant success, with soaring sales, forcing the company to expand its manufacturing facilities outside of Cleveland for the first time. In 1972, Kirby West began operations in Andrews, Texas, the facility doubled the companys manufacturing capabilities. Berkshire Hathaway bought Kirby parent Scott Fetzer in 1986 for $315 million, two years prior, Ivan Boesky had offered to buy Scott Fetzer for $60 a share, or $420 million. Warren Buffett has singled out Scott Fetzer to Berkshires shareholders as the prototype for the kind of company —, according to Berkshire managers, absolutely no changes were made to the existing Scott Fetzer business or management, and the entire business was preserved. Beginning in the 1990s, the Generation series, starting with the Generation 3, the addition of TechDrive variable power assist eliminated 90% of the effort required to move the unit back and forth. As of 2003, Kirby is the largest source of revenue and profit for Scott Fetzer, with approximately 500,000 sales per year, in 2003, Scott Fetzer sold the vacuums to about 835 factory distributors, who in turn sell the vacuums door-to-door. The Kirby Company generally produces one model at a time. Kirbys vacuums made until 1919 were made by Frantz Premier and those made from 1919 to 1934 are branded and made by The Scott & Fetzer Company. After 1934 all machines have made by Scott & Fetzer. The current model, the Avalir, is a system that converts into several different units and is sold by Kirbys independent distributors, the Avalir can be converted and used as a canister vacuum, hand portable vacuum, air pump, floor polisher, and more. It can also be converted into a system for carpets
4.
Berkshire Hathaway
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Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. The company wholly owns GEICO, BNSF Railway, Lubrizol, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Helzberg Diamonds, FlightSafety International, Pampered Chef, and NetJets, and also owns 43. Berkshire Hathaway averaged a growth in book value of 19. 7% to its shareholders for the last 49 years, while employing large amounts of capital. In the early part of Buffetts career at Berkshire, he focused on investments in publicly traded companies. According to the Forbes Global 2000 list and formula, Berkshire Hathaway is the fourth largest public company in the world, Berkshire Hathaway traces its roots to a textile manufacturing company established by Oliver Chace in 1839 as the Valley Falls Company in Valley Falls, Rhode Island. Chace had previously worked for Samuel Slater, the founder of the first successful textile mill in America, Chace founded his first textile mill in 1806. In 1929 the Valley Falls Company merged with the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company established in 1889, in Adams, the combined company was known as Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates. Hathaway had been successful in its first decades, but it suffered during a decline in the textile industry after World War I. At this time, Hathaway was run by Seabury Stanton, whose investment efforts were rewarded with renewed profitability after the Depression, after the merger Berkshire Hathaway had 15 plants employing over 12,000 workers with over $120 million in revenue and was headquartered in New Bedford. However, seven of those locations were closed by the end of the decade, in 1962, Warren Buffett began buying stock in Berkshire Hathaway after noticing a pattern in the price direction of its stock whenever the company closed a mill. Eventually, Buffett acknowledged that the business was waning and the companys financial situation was not going to improve. In 1964, Stanton made a tender offer of $11 1⁄2 per share for the company to buy back Buffetts shares. A few weeks later, Warren Buffett received the offer in writing. Buffett later admitted that this lower, undercutting offer made him angry, instead of selling at the slightly lower price, Buffett decided to buy more of the stock to take control of the company and fire Stanton. However, this put Buffett in a situation where he was now majority owner of a business that was failing. Buffett initially maintained Berkshires core business of textiles, but by 1967, he was expanding into the insurance industry, Berkshire first ventured into the insurance business with the purchase of National Indemnity Company. In the late 1970s, Berkshire acquired an equity stake in the Government Employees Insurance Company, in 1985, the last textile operations were shut down. Buffett claimed that had he invested that money directly in insurance businesses instead of buying out Berkshire Hathaway, Berkshires class A shares sold for $258,000
5.
Dewey Decimal Classification
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The Dewey Decimal Classification, or Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in 1876. It has been revised and expanded through 23 major editions, the latest issued in 2011 and it is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. It is currently maintained by the Online Computer Library Center, a cooperative that serves libraries. OCLC licenses access to a version for catalogers called WebDewey. The Decimal Classification introduced the concepts of relative location and relative index which allow new books to be added to a library in their location based on subject. Libraries previously had given books permanent shelf locations that were related to the order of acquisition rather than topic, the classifications notation makes use of three-digit Arabic numerals for main classes, with fractional decimals allowing expansion for further detail. Using Arabic numerals for symbols, it is flexible to the degree that numbers can be expanded in linear fashion to cover aspects of general subjects. A library assigns a number that unambiguously locates a particular volume in a position relative to other books in the library. The number makes it possible to find any book and to return it to its place on the library shelves. The classification system is used in 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries, the major competing classification system to the Dewey Decimal system is the Library of Congress Classification system created by the U. S. Melvil Dewey was an American librarian and self-declared reformer and he was a founding member of the American Library Association and can be credited with the promotion of card systems in libraries and business. He developed the ideas for his classification system in 1873 while working at Amherst College library. He applied the classification to the books in library, until in 1876 he had a first version of the classification. In 1876, he published the classification in pamphlet form with the title A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and he used the pamphlet, published in more than one version during the year, to solicit comments from other librarians. It is not known who received copies or how many commented as only one copy with comments has survived, in March 1876, he applied for, and received copyright on the first edition of the index. The edition was 44 pages in length, with 2,000 index entries, comprised 314 pages, with 10,000 index entries. Editions 3–14, published between 1888 and 1942, used a variant of this same title, Dewey modified and expanded his system considerably for the second edition. In an introduction to that edition Dewey states that nearly 100 persons hav contributed criticisms, one of the innovations of the Dewey Decimal system was that of positioning books on the shelves in relation to other books on similar topics
6.
Library of Congress Classification
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The Library of Congress Classification is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used by most research and academic libraries in the U. S. the Classification is also distinct from Library of Congress Subject Headings, the system of labels such as Boarding schools and Boarding schools—Fiction that describe contents systematically. The classification was invented by Herbert Putnam in 1897, just before he assumed the librarianship of Congress, with advice from Charles Ammi Cutter, it was influenced by his Cutter Expansive Classification, the Dewey Decimal System, and the Putnam Classification System. It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson, by the time Putnam departed from his post in 1939, all the classes except K and parts of B were well developed. LCC has been criticized for lacking a theoretical basis, many of the classification decisions were driven by the practical needs of that library rather than epistemological considerations. Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially enumerative in nature and that is, it provides a guide to the books actually in one librarys collections, not a classification of the world. In 2007 the Wall Street Journal reported that in the countries it surveyed most public libraries, the National Library of Medicine classification system uses the initial letters W and QS–QZ, which are not used by LCC. Some libraries use NLM in conjunction with LCC, eschewing LCCs R for Medicine, others use LCCs QP–QR schedules and include Medicine R. Subclass AC – Collections. Collected works Subclass AE – Encyclopedias Subclass AG – Dictionaries and other reference works Subclass AI – Indexes Subclass AM – Museums. Collectors and collecting Subclass AN – Newspapers Subclass AP – Periodicals Subclass AS – Academies, directories Subclass AZ – History of scholarship and learning. The humanities Subclass B – Philosophy Subclass BC – Logic Subclass BD – Speculative philosophy Subclass BF – Psychology Subclass BH – Aesthetics Subclass BJ – Ethics Subclass BL – Religions, rationalism Subclass BM – Judaism Subclass BP – Islam. Seals Subclass CE – Technical Chronology, calendar Subclass CJ – Numismatics Subclass CN – Inscriptions. Former Soviet Republics – Poland Subclass DL – Northern Europe, maps Subclass GA – Mathematical geography. Cartography Subclass GB – Physical geography Subclass GC – Oceanography Subclass GE – Environmental Sciences Subclass GF – Human ecology, anthropogeography Subclass GN – Anthropology Subclass GR – Folklore Subclass GT – Manners and customs Subclass GV – Recreation. Leisure Subclass H – Social sciences Subclass HA – Statistics Subclass HB – Economic theory, demography Subclass HC – Economic history and conditions Subclass HD – Industries. Labor Subclass HE – Transportation and communications Subclass HF – Commerce Subclass HG – Finance Subclass HJ – Public finance Subclass HM – Sociology Subclass HN – Social history, Social reform Subclass HQ – The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality Subclass HS – Societies, secret, benevolent, races Subclass HV – Social pathology. Municipal government Subclass JV – Colonies and colonization, International migration Subclass JX – International law, see JZ and KZ Subclass JZ – International relations Subclass K – Law in general
7.
Encyclopedia
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An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia is a type of reference work or compendium holding a comprehensive summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries, which are usually accessed alphabetically by article name, Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years, the oldest still in existence, AD77 by Pliny the Elder and was not fully revised at the time of his death in AD79. The modern encyclopedia evolved out of dictionaries around the 17th century, some modern encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, are often electronic and freely available. Together, the phrase literally translates as complete instruction or complete knowledge, one of the oldest vernacular uses was by François Rabelais in his Pantagruel in 1532. Several encyclopedias have names that include the suffix -pedia, e. g. Banglapedia, in British usage, the spellings encyclopedia and encyclopaedia are both current. In American usage, only the former is commonly used, the spelling encyclopædia—with the æ ligature—was frequently used in the 19th century and is increasingly rare, although it is retained in product titles such as Encyclopædia Britannica and others. The Oxford English Dictionary records encyclopædia and encyclopaedia as equal alternatives, websters Third New International Dictionary features encyclopedia as the main headword and encyclopaedia as a minor variant. In addition, cyclopedia and cyclopaedia are now rarely used shortened forms of the word originating in the 17th century, the modern encyclopedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts, a dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge. An encyclopedia is, allegedly, not written in order to convince, an encyclopedia article also often includes many maps and illustrations, as well as bibliography and statistics. General encyclopedias often contain guides on how to do a variety of things, as well as embedded dictionaries and gazetteers. There are also encyclopedias that cover a variety of topics but from a particular cultural, ethnic, or national perspective. Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their domain, such as an encyclopedia of medicine, philosophy. Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, some systematic method of organization is essential to making an encyclopedia usable as a work of reference
8.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
9.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
United States
