The idea of a canal linking the Mediterranean to the Rea Sea dates back to ancient times.
It was Napoleon’s engineers who, around 1800 AD, revived the idea of a shorter route
to India via the Suez Canal. It was not until 1859 that Egyptian workers started working
on the construction of Canal in conditions, described by historians, as slave labor. The
project was completed around 1867....
In 1870, a movement calling for Home Rule was founded in Ireland. Supporters of Home
Rule wanted a separate parliament to deal with Irish affairs in Dublin. Although the
British government was force to introduce many reforms, two bills to introduce Home
Rule were defeated in parliament in the 1880s and 1980s. William Gladstone was Prime
Minister of Britain four times during the reign...
The 1860s was a time of uncertainty and political unrest in Japan. Finally, in 1868, the
situation became so serious that Emperor Mutsuhito took control from the last shogun
(military dictator). Mutsuhito became known as the Meiji emperor, and this event is
called the ‘Meiji restoration’. Under the emperor’s authority, Japan embarked on a
programmed of modernization. In 1872, a group...
Britain had started her collection of overseas colonies in the reign of Elizabeth I. by 1602,
both England and the Netherlands had founded an ‘East India Company’ on the Indian
coast to trade with the Far East. The first settlements in North America took root and
flourished in early Stuart times. In 1661, Britain gained her first African foothold, seizing
James Island on the Gambia...
One of the biggest changes in the history of the world, the Industrial Revolution, started
in Britain was the first home of new machines, new types of materials and new ways of
making power. This was the age of coal and iron, of gas and electricity, of railways and
factories. These factories created millions of new jobs, so many people began to leave
the countryside to work in towns....
From 1492 onwards, European explores sailed across the Atlantic to what they called the
New World of North, Central and South America. There they discovered a treasure trove
of gold and silver. They also found foods that only grew in the New World, such as sweet
corn, potatoes and plants that could be made into medicines. The people that settled in the
New World were traders rather...
We know very little about the early history of Africa. There must have been great
civilizations there, but very few of them developed writing or left any records. Some
civilization built fine communities, such as the east coast port of Kilwa or the mysterious
stone complex of Great Zimbabwe. After about AD 700, Muslims from the Near East
began to take over many coastal regions and...
The bubonic plague (or ‘Black Death’) was a disease which brought death to most parts
of Asia, North Africa and Europe. The first outbreak was recorded in 1331 in China. The
plague started as a bloody swelling in the armpit or groin and quickly invaded the whole
body. It was highly contagious and killed millions of people. The infection probably
began on the steppes, the grassy plains...
The youngest son of Henry II, John, inherited from his brother Richard the throne of
England, as well as the Plantagenet dominions of France, which he had lost to the French
by 1204. John’s failure to recapture these territories, his dispute with Rome over the
Pope’s choice of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and a high level of taxation, had the
English nobility up in arms against...
The Byzantine emperor, a Christian monarch who lived in Constantinople, needed help.
He turned to the pope, who in 1095 called for all Christians to start a holy war against the
Suljuk Turks. Thousands rushed to join the Crusader armies. They crossed into Palentine
and recaptured the important cities of Nicaea and Antioch. Jerusalem fell in 1099 after a
desperate siege lasting six...
Traditionally, glue is made from boiling up the bones, skins and other parts of animals such as fish
or horses in order to extract the gelatin, which is then purified and concentrated to make a sticky
substance that will form a bond as it dries. There are now many different types of glues, made from
plant material or minerals such as petrol, as well as different kinds of synthetic...
There are a few factors that govern how valuable a stamp is to stamp collectors: the most important
is how rare it is. Obviously, very old stamps are uncommon so these, such as the ‘Penney Black’ very
seldom come up for sale and so are unbelievably expensive. Other things that might make a stamp rare
might be where a mistake was made in the printing and the stamp was withdrawn after...
A cloud is made up mainly of water. When hot air rises from the land or the sea, it carries water vapour
with it. Because the atmosphere usually gets colder with height, and cold air can hold less vapour
than warm air, the vapor eventually condenses in the form of water droplets or ice crystals around
particles of dust to form a cloud. If it continues to cool further, the cloud will...
It would be easy to think that a duck’s feathers would soon become waterlogged so that it would sink,
but in fact, ducks, geese and swans, as well as seabirds, have waterproof feathers, which enable them
to swim and dive beneath the surface of the water. Ducks create this waterproofing using the oil from
the preen gland, near the base of the tail, which they spread through their feathers...
Dinosaurs lived for an enormously long time-some 150 million years – before they died out about
64 million years ago. All the dinosaurs disappeared at about the same time. However, whether
this happened over a few days, a few years, one or two centuries, or even a few thousand years is
impossible to say. Many people believe that the dinosaurs became extinct as a result of climate change
after...
Several families of birds can be trained to ‘talk’, but in reality they are simply mimicking noises without
really understanding what they are saying, although they can be taught to associate a given word or
phrase with a given action, for example saying ‘give us a peanut’ to get a reward. The best talkers are
parrots and mynas, and members of the crow family such as crows, jackdaws...
Construction of the famous white marble bell tower (campanile) of Pisa’s cathedral began in 1173 but by
the time three stories were built, it had already begun to lean. Over the centuries, many methods have
been tried to prevent the lean getting worse but as most people did not understand what was causing
the lean, they made it worse. The soil under the tower is very soft and waterlogged...
The simplest way to describe an optical illusion is that it is a ‘trick’ that our eyes play on us. We seem to
see something that isn’t really so. Or we may be able to see the same object in two completely different
ways. If our eyes are working properly, and they are instructions for seeing exactly what is before
us, how can they play such tricks on us? This is because vision is not...
We all dream at night, although we may not remember our dreams in the morning. Although scientists
do not precisely understand how we dream, they have discovered that it is important for us to do so
and people who are prevented from dreaming soon begin to feel unhappy. We are deeply asleep when
we dream, but our brains are active. Scientists think that our brains may be working though...
If this question had a simple answer, such as a formula that could be learned, you can be sure that every
comedian would know it! But laughter is a complicated things, and the best explanations of it are still
only theories. We know, of course, that laughter is an expression of many feelings and that laughter is
only found among human beings. It is difficult to decide what really makes...
Early man had to rely on his own muscle-power to carry objects, but over thousands of years tamed
animals, such as horses, oxen and donkeys, elephants and camels. In order to be able to transport more
goods than an animal could carry on its back, sledges and hurdles that could be pulled behind the animal
were eventually invented, as well as such instruments as ploughs to make agriculture...
There are more than 150 species of octopus, ranging from the very small to the giant octopus, which
may reach 33ft (10m) in length. Most of them eat crabs, fish, crustaceans and smaller mollusks, which
they catch and tear apart with their suckered tentacles. An octopus’ mouth is shaped like a parrot’s
beak, with two very strong jaws. In addition the octopus can inject venom or poison...
Pearls, whether natural or cultured, are made in the bodies of some species of oysters and are
composed of the same material as the iridescent mother of pearl that lines oysters’ shells, which is a
form of calcium carbonate. If something, such as a grain of sand, gets into an oyster’s shell, it will not be
able to expel it and instead coats it with layers of mother of pearl, creating...
Jazz is a form of music that originated in southern UNITED States in the late 19 th century, as a
development of the songs and spirituals of Afro-American slaves, with melodies that incorporate both
African and European music , It is a strongly rhythmic form of music, incorporating elements of ragtime,
the blues and folk music. One popular early form came from New Orleans and was sometimes...
According to an ancient Greek myth, the god Pan invented the first musical instrument – the pipes that
are named after him – after he accidentally breathed heavily through old reeds beside a river and
produce a wail. He so liked the sound that he broke the reeds off and tied them together. Because the
reeds were different lengths they produce different notes. Although this is a myth,...
The ability to make a ball swerve through the air rather than follow a straight line is a valuable one in
many sports, whether as a pitcher in baseball, a spin bowler in cricket or a footballer taking a penalty.
The curve occurs because of the ‘Bernoulli effect’, which was discovered by scientist Daniel Bernoulli.
When the player wants to make the ball follow a curve through the air,...
Stars and Stripes - also called ‘Old Glory’, or ‘Star-spangled Banner’, is the flag of the United States of
America. It consist of white stars (50 from July 4, 1960) on a blue background, with a field of 13 alternate
stripes, 7 red and 6 white. The 50 stars stand for the 50 states of the Union, and the 13 stripes stand for
the original 13 states that signed the Declaration of Independence....
The sundial was one of the earliest devices for measuring time. But it can work only on a day with
plenty of sunlight. Early peoples also used ropes with knots tied at regular intervals. In the ninth century
candles were marked with regularly spaced lines, but this was not very accurate as a draught could
cause the candle to burn more quickly. When burned, such devices measured time....
If we think about different types of clocks and watches, we associate some of them with different
countries: grandfather clocks and marine chronometers from England, cuckoo clocks from both
Germany and Switzerland, precision-engineered jeweled watches from Switzerland, too, and digital
watches from countries in south-east Asia such as Japan. Watches are very important to the Swiss
economy...
Scorpion are distant relatives of spider, but while spiders bite, scorpion carry their venom in poison glands near the stinger that they carry at the tip of the tail. Many scorpions live in arid areas, such as deserts, where they will shelter from the heat of the day under stones or in the burrow of another animal, and hunt insects at night. Other species live in jungles and shelter...
Erosion constantly wears away solid rock through the action of rain, snow and waves, frost and ice, glaciers and wind and the bits broken off are slowly broken down into ever-smaller pieces. The most common mineral found in sand is quartz but other mineral, such as calcite, feldspar and mica are also present. The colour of sand on a beach reflects the material from which it is...
Mussels are molluscs and are related to water snails. Because their shells are divided into two halves, they are called bivaldes. The shell protects the soft body of the animal. A powerful foot enables the animal to...
Parasites are animals that live at the expense of other animals. They rob the host animal of nourishment and often cause it to become sick. However, in other types of relationships, different animals can help one anothe...
Crustaceans are aquatic arthropods such as crabs, lobster and shrimps. They have a very tough, jointed external skeleton and jointed walking legs. Their body is divided into a region that contains most of the...
Arthropods are the animals with a hard external skeleton like a suit of armour. The skeleton is jointed to allow movement. Arthropods have evolved in a different way to vertebrates and even their blood is...
A marsupial is a mammal whose young are born in an extremely immature state. The newborn undergoes most of its development attached to one of its mother's nipples and nourished by her milk. Females of most...
A reptile is an air-breathing animal with a body structure comprising of traits from amphibians, birds and mammals. Reptiles are generally scaly and their eggs are fertilized internally. Living reptiles include...
A warm-blooded animal is an animal that almost always has about the same body temperature, regardless
of the temperature of its surroundings. Birds and mammals, including human beings, are warm-blooded...
Mammals are vertebrate animals who nourish their young with milk.
All mammals and birds are warm-blooded. Most mammals have hair on their bodies which moults to be...
Earthquakes on the ocean floor can give a tremendous push to surroundings seawater and create one or more large, destructive waves called tsunamis, also known as seismic sea waves. Some people ca...
DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid) is the basic unit of control of human life. It is a highly complex substance formed from a chain of chemical units called nucleotides. All the the instructions for growing a...
There is more than one gene for eye pigment, as shown in the illustration below, but brown is always dominant over blue. Two people, one with two genes for brown eyes, the other with two genes for blue...
People are rapidly destroying the world's rain forests. In 1950, rain forests covered about 8,700,000 square miles (22,533,000 square km) of the earth. This area would cover about three-quarters of Africa. Today,...
From a hazy mixture of history and legend, we learn that China's first ruling family was the Hsia. The legendary first emperors are said to have tamed the rivers, so that farmers could grow millet and wheat. The...
In the AD 500s, an Italian named Benedict of Nursia drew up a set of rules for monks (or people in monasteries). All monks must be poor, unmarried and obedient. Monks wore simple robes, shaved their...
The most powerful ruler among the English kings was acknowledged as 'bretwalda', or supreme king. The Sutton Hoo ship burial site in Suffolk was discovered in AD 1939. It is almost certainly the monument to...
Rome grew from a small kingdom in Italy. It became a republic and one of the mightiest empires of the ancient world, with an empire stretching the length of the Mediterranean Sea. At its peak, the Roman Empire...
Egyptian picture-writing is known as HIEROGLYPHICS. This language is made up of about 750 signs, with pictures of people, animals and objects. until hieroglyphics was deciphered in modern times, it was not known that most of the picture represented sounds and syllables,...
More than 5,000 years ago Europeans were building spectacular stone monuments. Many of these are still standing today, as mysterious relics of a long-gone society. The huge stones that were used are called megaliths...
Climate is what the weather pattern is like over a long time. The seasonal pattern of hot and cold, wet or dry, is averaged over 30 years. The climate is different around the world as it is not heated evenly by the...
WHAT SHAPES THE COASTS?
Coastlines are constantly changing: they are either being eroded or built up. The waves are very powerful and can remove a large amount of material from a coastline, specially during a storm. The sand and pebbles removed from the coastline are carried...
River start on the top of hills as small streams channelling the rainfall or as a spring releasing ground water. They begin to cut at and change the landscape on the way to the sea. In the highlands the water can move...
Over 10,000 years ago about a third of the land surface was covered by ice. Today a tenth is still covered in ice. Ice sheets can cover very large areas and can be very thick. The world's largest ice sheet covers most of &nbs...
Glacier begin to from when more snow falls during the winter than melts and evaporates in summer. The excess snow gradually builds up in layer. its increasing weight causes the snow crystals under the surface to...
A desert landscape includes various kinds of surface features created by water and air erosion and by deposits of silt, sand, and other sediments. The drainage system is made up of normally dry streams called arroyos.
After a rainfall, water fills the stream channels called wadi 1....
Erosion is the natural process by which rock are broken loose from the Earth,s surface at one location and moved to another. Erosion changes land by wearing down mountains, filling in valleys, and making rivers...
The continental margins forms the part of the seabed that borders the continents. It consist of (1) the continental sheft, (2) the continental slope, and (3) the continental rise. The continental shelf is submerged...
The bottom of the ocean has feature has varied as those on land. Huge plains spread out across the ocean floor, and long mountain chains rise toward the surface. Volcanoes erupt from ocean bottom, and deep...
Plate tectonics is a theory that explains the origin of most of the major features of the Earth's surface. For example, the theory tells us why most volcanoes occur where they do, why there are high ridges and deep trenches in the oceans, and how mountains form. According to this...
WHAT DID THE CONTINENTS USED TO LOOK LIKE?
When the Earth formed, the lighter elements floated to the surface where they cooled to form a crust. Although the first rock were formed over 3,500 years ago they have not stayed the same. They have been changed from forces on the...
WHAT ARE OCEAN TRENCHES?
Trenches are the deepest parts of the ocean. Many renches occur in the Pacific Ocean, especialy its in wesstern portion. Most trenches are long, narrow, and deep, 2 to 2.5 miles (3 to 4 km) below the the surrounding sea floor. The greaest depth anywhere in the...
WHAT DEFINES A DAY?
For early peoples, the only changes that were truly regular, were the
motion of the objects in the sky. The obvious of these changes was the
alternate daylight and darkness, caused by the rising and setting of
the sun. Each of these cycles of the sun came...
WHAT IS THE DEPTH OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN?
The pacific ocean, the largest and deepest of the world's four oceans,
covers more than a third of the earth's surface and contains more than
half of its free water. The floor of the pacific ocean, Which has an
average depth of around 14,000...
WHAT CAUSES TIDES?OUR WORLD?
Tides are the periodic rise and fall of all oceans,
caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon. The moon's
pull on the earth draws the ocean water towards the Moon,
making the water form a huge swell. This is known as a high tide.
Water...
WHAT ARE MOLLUSCS?
After insects, molluscs form the largest group of animals. Molluscs have
soft, muscular bodies, often covered by a protective shell. Some, such
as snails, move on a muscular foot , which can be withdrawn into the
shell for protection. Other, sea-dwelling...
WHAT IS INSIDE THE STOMACH?
If you did not have a stomach you could not eat just two or three main
mails each day. You would have to eat lots of tiny ones much more
frequently. The stomach is like a stretchy storage bag for food. It
expands to hold a whole meal. Then the layer...
Everything you eat has to be chopped up the broken before the nutrients
or goodness in it can be taken into your blood and used by your body
cell to make energy. This chopping up and breaking down takes place in
your digestive system, or gut. Digestion begins with the...
