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History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past.

Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians strive to integrate the perspectives of several sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.

History is a broad discipline encompassing many branches. Some focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, while others concentrate on particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa. Thematic categorizations include political history, military history, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods and sources include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.

History emerged as a field of inquiry in antiquity to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later in the Islamic world. Historical writing evolved throughout the ages and became increasingly professional, particularly during the 19th century, when a rigorous methodology and various academic institutions were established. History is related to many fields, including historiography, philosophy, education, and politics.

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Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley, it stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw), hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.

Shot mostly on location at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts from May to October 1974, Jaws was the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean and consequently had a troubled production, going over budget and schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks often malfunctioned, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the shark's presence, employing an ominous and minimalist theme created by composer John Williams to indicate its impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures' release of the film to over 450 screens was an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture at the time, and it was accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign that heavily emphasized television spots and tie-in merchandise.

Regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history, Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster and won several awards for its music and editing. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Star Wars two years later; both films were pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which pursues high box-office returns from action and adventure films with simple high-concept premises, released during the summer in thousands of theaters and advertised heavily. Jaws was followed by three sequels (none of which involved Spielberg or Benchley) and many imitative thrillers. In 2001, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

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Johann Reinhold Forster (German: [ˈfɔʁstɐ]; 22 October 1729 – 9 December 1798) was a German Reformed pastor and naturalist. Born in Dirschau, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Tczew, Poland), he attended school in Dirschau and Marienwerder before being admitted at the Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium in Berlin in 1745. Skilled in classical and biblical languages, he studied theology at the University of Halle. In 1753, he became a parson at a parish just south of Danzig. He married his cousin Justina Elisabeth Nicolai in 1754, and they had seven children; the oldest child was George Forster, also known as Georg.

In 1765, Forster was commissioned by the Russian government to inspect the new colonies on the Volga. Accompanied by George on the journey, he observed the conditions of the colonists and made scientific observations that were later read at the Russian Academy of Sciences. After making a report that was critical of the Russian administration, Forster left for England without payment in 1766. In England, Forster became the successor of Joseph Priestley as tutor in modern languages and natural history at Warrington Academy where he worked for two years. He made contact with many other naturalists, published a textbook on mineralogy and translated works of the apostles of Linnaeus into English. Invited by the geographer Alexander Dalrymple, Forster moved to London in 1770 in preparation for participation in an East India Company expedition, but the plans fell through and Forster continued to publish translations and scientific works including contributions to North American zoology and botany. In February 1772, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

After the withdrawal of Joseph Banks from the second voyage of James Cook, Forster accepted the position of naturalist on Cook's ship, where he was accompanied by his son George as draughtsman and assistant. On their three-year journey, they made the first recorded crossing of the Antarctic Circle and made observations and discoveries in New Zealand and Polynesia. When they returned to England, Forster published the botanical work Characteres generum plantarum. However, there was disagreement with Cook on who should write a narrative of the journey. After a lengthy argument, George wrote A Voyage Round the World, which appeared six weeks before Cook's account. Forster separately published his scientific Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World.

Forster's pride and obstinacy caused him to fall out with many powerful men in England; after clearing some of his substantial debt with the aid of German patrons, he returned to Germany where he was a professor at the University of Halle from 1780. He oversaw the university's botanical garden for a few years and published in a wide range of sciences. Forster died in 1798 and is buried in Halle. He is commemorated in the names of various species of plants and animals, including the genera Forstera and Forsterygion.

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The Ooni of Ile-Ife (Ọọ̀ni of Ilè-Ifẹ̀) is the traditional ruler of Ilé-Ifẹ̀. The Ooni dynasty existed before the reign of Oduduwa which historians have argued to have been between the 7th-9th centuries A.D.

After the demise of Oduduwa and Ogun’s fail attempt to take over the throne, Oduduwa's support base dispersed out of Ile-Ife. Another account, but not in tandem with existing evidences, states that Ogun purposely sent all Oduduwa's children on different journeys to effect Yoruba territory expansion.

Whatever the case, after Oduduwa's short reign, Ọbàtálá re-emerged as the king of Ile-Ife and the throne was rotated between Obatala and Obalufon houses until the return of Oranmiyan who briefly interrupted the succession pattern. Popular history identifies Ooni Lajamisan to have been a son or grandson of Oranmiyan. Meanwhile Ife tradition remains unclear about his ancestry. Lajamisan is often said to have opened the modern Ife history.

Prior to the 20th century, the succession pattern of the Ooni was fluid. However, with the modernity that came with colonialism, the succession pattern was structured to the existing four actual Ruling Houses,[1] which were named from Ooni Lafogido, Ooni Osinkola, Ooni Ogboru and Ooni Giesi. The structure has been heavily critiqued for being influenced by politics, personal vendetta and obfuscation of history. For instance, while the first three were said to have been sons of Ooni Lajodogun, certain figures regarded as siblings of Ogboru have either been completely excluded or subsumed. The current Ooni is Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II (born October 17, 1974).

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Malcolm Scott Carpenter (May 1, 1925 – October 10, 2013) was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959. Carpenter was the second American (after John Glenn) to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, after Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn.

Commissioned into the U.S. Navy in 1949, Carpenter became a naval aviator, flying a Lockheed P-2 Neptune with Patrol Squadron 6 (VP-6) on reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare missions along the coasts of the Soviet Union and China during the Korean War and the Cold War. In 1954, he attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, and became a test pilot. In 1958, he was named Air Intelligence Officer of USS Hornet, which was then in dry dock at the Bremerton Navy Yard.

The following year, Carpenter was selected as one of the Mercury Seven astronauts. He was backup to Glenn during the latter's Mercury Atlas 6 orbital mission. Carpenter flew the next mission, Mercury Atlas 7, in the spacecraft he named Aurora 7. Due to a series of malfunctions, the spacecraft landed 250 miles (400 km) downrange from its intended splashdown point, but both pilot and spacecraft were retrieved.

In 1964, Carpenter obtained permission from NASA to take a leave of absence to join the U.S. Navy SEALAB project as an aquanaut. During training he suffered injuries that grounded him, making him unavailable for further spaceflights. In 1965, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California as part of SEALAB II. He returned to NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, then joined the Navy's Deep Submergence Systems Project in 1967 as Director of Aquanaut Operations for SEALAB III. He retired from NASA in 1967 and the Navy in 1969, with the rank of commander.

Carpenter became a consultant to sport and diving manufacturers, and to the film industry on space flight and oceanography. He gave talks and appeared in television documentaries. He was involved in projects related to biological pest control and waste disposal, and for the production of energy from industrial and agricultural wastes. He appeared in television commercials and wrote a pair of technothrillers and an autobiography, For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut, co-written with his daughter, Kristen Stoever.

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The Battle of Groix ([ɡʁwa], g'r-wah) took place on 23 June 1795 off the island of Groix in the Bay of Biscay during the War of the First Coalition. It was fought between elements of the British Channel Fleet and the French Atlantic Fleet, which were cruising in the region on separate missions. The British fleet, commanded by Admiral Lord Bridport, was covering an invasion convoy carrying a French Royalist army tasked with invading Quiberon, while the French fleet under Vice-admiral Villaret de Joyeuse had sailed a week earlier to rescue a convoy from being attacked by a British squadron. The French fleet had driven off the British squadron in a battle on 17 June known as Cornwallis's Retreat, and were attempting to return to their base at Brest when Bridport's force of 14 ships of the line appeared on 22 June.

Villaret, believing that the stronger British fleet would destroy his own 12 ships of the line, ordered his force to fall back to the inshore anchorage off Groix, hoping to take shelter in protected coastal waters. Several of his ships were too slow, falling behind so that early in the morning of 23 June the rearmost ships of his fleet were caught by the British vanguard, overhauled one by one and brought to battle. Although Villaret fought a determined rearguard action, three French ships were captured, all with very heavy casualties, and the remainder of the French fleet was left scattered across miles of coastline. In this position they were highly vulnerable to continued British attack, but after only a few hours' engagement, concerned that his ships might be wrecked on the rocky coastline, Bridport called off the action and allowed Villaret to regroup inshore and retreat to Lorient.

Although the battle was a British victory, there was criticism of Bridport's rapid withdrawal. British historians have subsequently considered that a unique opportunity to destroy the French Atlantic fleet had been lost. The invasion at Quiberon ended in disaster a month later, although Bridport remained at sea in the region until September. The French fleet by contrast was trapped in the port of Lorient where food supplies ran out, forcing Villaret to discharge many of his ships' crews. As a result, most ships did not return to Brest until the winter and were consequently unable to threaten British control of the French coastline for the remainder of the year. Several French captains were court-martialled following the battle, with two dismissed for disobeying orders.

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A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place in a white dwarf; what light it radiates is from its residual heat.[1] The nearest known white dwarf is Sirius B, at 8.6 light years, the smaller component of the Sirius binary star. There are currently thought to be eight white dwarfs among the hundred star systems nearest the Sun.[2] The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910.[3]: 1  The name white dwarf was coined by Willem Jacob Luyten in 1922.

White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of stars whose mass is not high enough to become a neutron star or black hole. This includes over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way.[4]: §1  After the hydrogen-fusing period of a main-sequence star of low or intermediate mass ends, such a star will expand to a red giant and fuse helium to carbon and oxygen in its core by the triple-alpha process. If a red giant has insufficient mass to generate the core temperatures required to fuse carbon (around 109 K), an inert mass of carbon and oxygen will build up at its center. After such a star sheds its outer layers and forms a planetary nebula, it will leave behind a core, which is the remnant white dwarf.[5] Usually, white dwarfs are composed of carbon and oxygen (CO white dwarf). If the mass of the progenitor is between 7 and 9 solar masses (M☉), the core temperature will be sufficient to fuse carbon but not neon, in which case an oxygen–neon–magnesium (ONeMg or ONe) white dwarf may form.[6] Stars of very low mass will be unable to fuse helium; hence, a helium white dwarf[7][8] may be formed by mass loss in an interacting binary star system.[9]

Because the material in a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions, it lacks a heat source to support it against gravitational collapse. Instead, it is supported only by electron degeneracy pressure, causing it to be extremely dense. The physics of degeneracy yields a maximum mass for a non-rotating white dwarf, the Chandrasekhar limit— approximately 1.44 times M☉— beyond which electron degeneracy pressure cannot support it. A carbon–oxygen white dwarf which approaches this limit, typically by mass transfer from a companion star, may explode as a Type Ia supernova via a process known as carbon detonation;[1][5] SN 1006 is a likely example.

A white dwarf, very hot when it forms, gradually cools as it radiates its energy. This radiation, which initially has a high color temperature, lessens and reddens over time. Eventually a white dwarf will cool enough that its material will begin to crystallize into a cold black dwarf.[4] The oldest known white dwarfs still radiate at temperatures of a few thousand kelvins, which establishes an observational limit on the maximum possible age of the universe.[10]

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The period between 1701 and the 1870 Elementary Education Act saw an expansion in access to formal education in Wales, though schooling was not yet universal.

During the 18th century, several philanthropic efforts were made to provide education to poorer children and sometimes adults—schools established by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), circulating schools, Sunday schools and endowed elementary schools. This allowed many Welsh peasants to learn to read and develop an interest in religion. In the early to mid-19th century charitable schools were established to provide a basic education. Private schools aimed at the working classes also existed. Most elementary-level schools taught a limited curriculum and made significant use of corporal punishment. State funding was introduced to schools from 1833. This was later followed by school inspections and teacher training. Physical punishment declined in schools in the mid-19th century and, from 1862, schools had to participate in standardised tests to receive grants.

Some use of the Welsh language was made in 18th-century philanthropic education at a time when the Welsh peasantry was, for the most part, solely Welsh-speaking. In the early 19th century Welsh public opinion was keen for children to learn the English language. Many schools tried to achieve this by excluding Welsh and punishing children for speaking the language. The Welsh Not was a method of punishment used at many schools and remains well known in Wales. Government investigations in the mid-19th century indicated that this approach was ineffective and that some use of Welsh in schools was necessary to teach English. The government did not prohibit the use of Welsh but it did little to promote bilingualism in schools during this period.

Grammar schools continued to exist but experienced difficulties, and by the end of the period provision of secondary education was very limited. Dissenter academies and later theological colleges offered a higher level of education. Girls' involvement in elementary and secondary education increased, but remained more limited than for boys.

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Donkey Kong Land, known in Japan as Super Donkey Kong GB,[a][1] is a 1995 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy. It condenses the side-scrolling gameplay of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) game Donkey Kong Country (1994) for the handheld Game Boy with different level design and boss fights. The player controls the gorilla Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong as they defeat enemies and collect items across 30 levels to recover their stolen banana hoard from the crocodile King K. Rool.

Development began in 1994, before Donkey Kong Country's completion, and lasted a year. Rare's Game Boy programmer, Paul Machacek, developed Land as an original game rather than as a port of Country after convincing Rare co-founder Tim Stamper it would be a better use of resources. Like Country, Land features pre-rendered graphics converted to sprites through a compression technique. Rare retooled Country's gameplay to account for the lower quality display, and David Wise and Graeme Norgate converted the soundtrack to the Game Boy's sound chip.

Donkey Kong Land was released in mid-1995. It sold 3.91 million copies and received positive reviews. Critics praised it as successfully translating Country's gameplay, visuals, and music to the Game Boy, though they disagreed over whether it was an equal experience. Land was followed by Donkey Kong Land 2 (1996), Donkey Kong Land III (1997), and a Game Boy Color version of Country (2000), which attempted to replicate the SNES Country games more closely. Land and its sequels were rereleased for the Nintendo 3DS via the Virtual Console service in 2014, and on Nintendo Switch via the Nintendo Classics service in 2024.

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Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work or interest that fit their names. The term was first used in the magazine New Scientist in 1994, after the magazine's humorous "Feedback" column noted several studies carried out by researchers with remarkably fitting surnames. These included a book on polar explorations by Daniel Snowman and an article on urology by researchers named Splatt and Weedon. These and other examples led to light-hearted speculation that some sort of psychological effect was at work. Since the term appeared, nominative determinism has been an irregularly recurring topic in New Scientist, as readers continue to submit examples. Nominative determinism differs from the related concept aptronym, and its synonyms 'aptonym', 'namephreak', and 'Perfect Fit Last Name' (captured by the Latin phrase nomen est omen 'the name is a sign'), in that it focuses on causality. 'Aptronym' merely means the name is fitting, without saying anything about why it has come to fit.

The idea that people are drawn to professions that fit their name was suggested by the psychologist Carl Jung, citing as an example Sigmund Freud who studied pleasure and whose surname means 'joy'. A few recent empirical studies have indicated that certain professions are disproportionately represented by people with appropriate surnames (and sometimes given names), though the methods of these studies have been challenged. One explanation for nominative determinism is implicit egotism, which states that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves.