History Of Tom & Jerry

Tom and Jerry, two of the most honored cartoon characters in motion pictures, were created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Their plot centered on a never-ending battle, in other words, a chase between a housecat and a brown mouse. The Hanna- Barbera duo had written and directed 114 Tom and Jerry cartoons from 1940 to 1957, at the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood. The pair won a total of 7 Oscar awards for Best Animated Short Subject, more than any other character-based theatrical animated series. The series has also been named as the ‘Greatest Television Shows of All Time’ by TIME, in 2000. Tom and Jerry was also placed at the 66th position, in the ‘Top 100 Animated TV Shows’ by IGN, in January 2009. Read on to know interesting and amazing information on the history, origin and background of Tom and Jerry.

Interesting & Amazing Information On Origin & Background Of Tom & Jerry

Joseph Barbera, a storyman and character designer, paired up with an experienced director, William Hanna to create a cat-and-mouse cartoon. The first cartoon was titled ‘Puss Gets the Boot’ and it released in theatres on February 10, 1940. Having lost to another MGM cartoon at the Academy Awards, Hanna and Barbera held a contest to give the cat and mouse a new name and look. Animator John Carr won the contest, with his suggestion of Tom and Jerry. The series went into production and eventually, Hanna and Barbera went on to direct only the cat-and-mouse cartoon, for the rest of their tenure at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

History Of Money

 Money is anything that is commonly accepted by a group of people for the exchange of goods, services, or resources. Every country has its own system of coins and paper money.
Bartering and Commodity Money
In the beginning, people bartered. Barter is the exchange of a good or service for another good or service, a bag of rice for a bag of beans. However, what if you couldn't agree what something was worth in exchange or you didn't want what the other person had. To solve that problem humans developed what is called commodity money.

A commodity is a basic item used by almost everyone. In the past, salt, tea, tobacco, cattle and seeds were commodities and therefore were once used as money. However, using commodities as money had other problems. Carrying bags of salt and other commodities was hard, and commodities were difficult to store or were perishable.


Coins and Paper Money
Metals objects were introduced as money around 5000 B.C. By 700 BC, the Lydians became the first in the Western world to make coins. Countries were soon minting their own series of coins with specific values. Metal was used because it was readily available, easy to work with and could be recycled. Since coins were given a certain value, it became easier to compare the cost of items people wanted.

Some of the earliest known paper money dates back to China, where the issue of paper money became common from about AD 960 onwards.

Representative Money
With the introduction of paper currency and non-precious coinage, commodity money evolved into representative money. This meant that what money itself was made of no longer had to be very valuable.

Representative money was backed by a government or bank's promise to exchange it for a certain amount of silver or gold. For example, the old British Pound bill or Pound Sterling was once guaranteed to be redeemable for a pound of sterling silver.

For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the majority of currencies were based on representative money through the use of the gold standard.

Fiat Money
Representative money has now been replaced by fiat money. Fiat is the Latin word for "let it be done". Money is now given value by a government fiat or decree, in other words enforceable legal tender laws were made. By law the refusal of "legal tender" money in favor of some other form of payment is illegal.

$$$
The origin of the "$" money sign is not certain. Many historians trace the $ money sign to either the Mexican or Spanish "P's" for pesos, or piastres, or pieces of eight. The study of old manuscripts shows that the "S," gradually came to be written over the "P," looking very much like the "$" mark.

U.S. Money Trivia
On March 10, 1862 the first United States paper money was issued. The denominations were $5, $10, and $20. They became legal tender by Act of March 17, 1862. The inclusion of "In God We Trust" on all currency was required by law in 1955. The national motto first appeared on paper money in 1957 on $1 Silver Certificates, and on all Federal Reserve Notes beginning with Series 1963.

History Of The Kingdom of Urartu

A Redoubtable Foe

One of the great chapters in the history of Armenia is or should be the epic of the monarchy which the Assyrians called Urartu, but which was known to the Hebrews as Ararat. Herodotus called its people Alarodians. Urartu is regarded by history today as one of the earlier incarnations of Armenia. In Urartu was manifest not only the indomitable fighting spirit of the later Armenians, but also the same tendency towards development of a higher culture. As a noted authority, H. A. B. Lynch, remarks, Urartu was "no obscure dynasty which slept secure behind the mountains, but a splendid monarchy which for more than two centuries rivalled the claims of Assyria to the dominion of the ancient world."

Its Peak Years

As a nation, it lived through many more centuries than that, but it was only between 860 and 585 B.C. that it actually disputed with Assyria the right to dominate western Asia. Its beginnings are lost in the mists of pre-history. Its people must have migrated from somewhere to the west into the Armenian plateau, then for the most part known as Nairi. They called themselves Khaldians or children of the god Khaldis, just as the name of the Assyrians reflects the name of their god Assur. The cuneiform characters of their inscriptions were for centuries Assyrian; but later on the language changed to or was absorbed in the local one. The Assyrian was a Semitic language, while Urartean was neither Semitic nor Indo-European. Urartean culture is believed to have been similar to the Hittite and Assyro-Babylonian, blended with native characteristics. The later Urartean monuments still hold a mystery for us as to their affinity with the Armenian language, witness of a glorious past. It has not yet been possible to decipher these inscriptions with any aid from the Armenian language. N. Marr, Nikolsky, Lehmann-Haupt and earlier scientists have classified them as in the Japhetic speech-group, and the Armenian experts, A. Calantar and G. Ghapantsian, agree in this finding. Professor Nikolsky has found hundreds of words, both nouns and verbs, showing affinity between the Urartean and the modern Utean. As early as 1879 H. Hübschmann pointed out in the Urartean inscriptions several words and suffixes — such as ili, ini, and uni — borrowed from Caucasian idioms, especially Georgian and Aghouanian (Albanian).

History Of the Byzantine Empire

 Constantine, now in firm command of the entire Roman empire (the first man for a long while to be in that position), is planning another initiative as significant as his adoption of Christianity. Immediately after the defeat of Licinius he sets about rebuilding Byzantium as a Christian capital city - one in which pagan sacrifice, the central rite of imperial Rome until this time, is specifically forbidden.

The city is ready by AD 330 for a ceremony of inauguration. Byzantium acquires two new names - New Rome and Constantinople, the city of Constantine. The Roman empire, within eighteen years of Constantine's first victory, has a new religion, a new centre of gravity and a significant change of culture.
         
Greece has always been the main cultural influence on Rome, and Greek is the language of the inhabitants of Byzantium. With the founding of Constantinople, the older culture effectively absorbs its vigorous younger challenger. Even the name Constantinopolis is Greek (polis meaning city).

Yet Constantinople is also the new Rome, capital of the Roman empire. The Greeks of this city will long continue to describe themselves as Romans. For several centuries Constantinople represents both the end of the Roman empire and the beginning of the Byzantine empire. Meanwhile Rome gradually establishes a new identity - as the seat of the Christian pope.
       
Byzantium offers the Roman emperor a clear strategic advantage as a centre of operation, for it is much closer than Rome to the threatened regions of the empire.

The main problems in the past century have been defending the Balkans from invaders beyond the Danube and protecting the Middle East from the Persians. Byzantium, renewed now as Constantinople, sits firmly between these troubled regions.

History of Assyrians

Assyria is located in north Mesopotamia and spans four countries: In Syria it extends west to the Euphrates river; in Turkey it extends north to Harran, Edessa, Diyarbakir, and Lake Van; in Iran it extends east to Lake Urmi, and in Iraq it extends to about 100 miles south of Kirkuk. This is the Assyrian heartland, from which so much of the ancient Near East came to be controlled.

Two great rivers run through Assyria, the Tigris and the Euhprates, and many lesser ones, the most important of which being the Upper Zab and Lower Zab, both tributaries to the Tigris. Strategically surrounding the Tigris and the two Zabs are the Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Ashur, Arbel, Nimrod and Arrapkha.

To the north and east of Assyria lie the Taurus and Zagros mountains. To the west and south lies a great, low limestone plateau. At the southern end of Assyria the gravel plains give way to alluvium deposited by the Tigris, and farther south there is insufficient rainfall for agriculture without irrigation. These two features create a geogrpahical boundary between Assyria and the neighboring land to the south.

To the south of Baghdad lies Babylon. There is a stark geographical distinction between Babylonia and Assyria. To quote Saggs,

history of Eastern Zhou Dynasty, China

history of Eastern Zhou Dynasty, China

In 771 BC, with the death of King You, the last king of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty began. Xuan Jiu, the son of King You, established the dynasty in 770 BC, and moved the capital to Luoyi (present-day Luoyang, Henan Province). Over 25 emperors have reigned over the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, lasting 515 years in all. The Eastern Zhou Dynasty was a time full of change, marked by the scrabble for hegemony by many nations. At the same time, the dynasty features supreme prosperity in economy, science and culture.

The Eastern Zhou Dynasty is divided into two periods: the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC) and the Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC).
 Political History

 Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC)

The Spring and Autumn period began when the capital was moved to Luoyi in 770 BC and named after the Spring and Autumn Annals written by Confucius. The period was one of turbulence and great changes took place in the economy, politics, military affairs and culture.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, there were over 140 states, and royal authority gradually lost its ruling position. Some powerful states developed quickly and began to annex weaker ones. Once the powerful ones won, they would force the defeated to acknowledge their rule. Five overlords declared their hegemony in succession in this period: they were Huangong of the Qi State, Xianggong of the Song State, Wengong of Jin, Mugong of the Qin and Zhuangwang of Chu. In Chinese history they are known as 'the Five Overlords in the Spring and Autumn Period'.

History of Mickey mouse

History of Mickey mouse

Cheryl Holdridge 1944-2009


Cheryl in the Club

Cheryl Holdridge was born June 20, 1944 as Cheryl Lynn Phelps, in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She passed away on January 5th, 2009, at the age of 64, after a 2 year battle with lung cancer.

An original member of the Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers along with Annette Funicello. Her surname came from her adoptive father, Herbert Holdridge, a retired Brigadier General. After studying dance, she performed first at the age of nine in The Nutcracker, in Los Angeles. Her first screen appearance, although uncredited, as she was just an extra, was in the 1956 movie, Carousel, with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.

history of russia

Slavs in Russia: from 1500 BC

The steppes, which form a broad pathway into southern Russia from central Asia, have been occupied by nomads since distant prehistoric times. By contrast the northern forests, in a region covered by an ice cap until the end of the latest glacial period, only become open to human settlement some 10,000 years ago (see Ice Ages).

From about 1500 BC the Slavs, an Indo-European group, settle in the region of Poland and western Russia. Vulnerable to attack along the steppes, they are often dominated by other groups (in particular the Khazars). But they hold their territory until the arrival of Vikings from the north.
         Vikings in Russia: from the 9th century AD

Unusually for the Vikings, trade rather than plunder is the main reason for their penetration deep into Russia during the 9th century AD. The rivers of eastern Europe, flowing north and south, make it surprisingly easy for goods to travel between the Baltic and the Black Sea.

One spot is particularly well-favoured as a trading centre. Near Lake Ilmen the headwaters of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga rivers are close to each other. Respectively they flow into the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Caspian. Goods ferried by water between these important trading regions converge on this area. By the early 9th century Viking tribes known as the Rus have a base on the site of Novgorod.
        Although they are not Slavs, there is justice in the Rus giving Russia her name. Their development of trade, particularly down the Dnieper (a route which becomes known as Austrvegr, or the 'Great Waterway'), lays the foundation of the Russian nation.

In 882 a Viking leader, Oleg, moves his headquarters down the Dnieper, seizing the town of Kiev. Here, in 911, he negotiates a commercial treaty with the Byzantine empire.

A Viking successor of Oleg's in Kiev, two generations later, describes how this first Russian city is the centre of a triangular trade between civilized Byzantium in the south, the steppe lands in the middle, and the wild forests of the north.

In this place 'all goods gather from all parts: gold, clothes, wine, fruits from the Greeks; silver and horses from the Czechs and Hungarians; furs, wax, honey and slaves from the Rus'.
   
The first Russians: 10th - 11th century AD

The rulers of Kiev in the 10th century are still Vikings. But as they settle and become more prosperous they begin to seem something new and different - Russians. This is particularly true of Vladimir, who is proclaimed prince of all Russia in 980 after capturing Kiev from a rival.

Vladimir's early life is spent in full-blooded pagan style, fighting and wenching (the chronicles credit him with 800 concubines), but in about 988 he takes a step which gives Russia its characteristic identity and brings him personally the halo of a saint. He sends envoys out to discover which is the best religion. Their report persuades him to choose for Russia the Greek Orthodox brand of Christianity.

The new religion is rapidly imposed upon the towns under the control of Vladimir and his family. The inhabitants of Novgorod, the most prosperous of these towns apart from Kiev itself, are forcibly baptized in 989.

Vladimir won Kiev in 980 after a fight to the death between himself and various brothers, and the process is repeated after his own death in 1015. His successor, Yaroslav the Wise, is the survivor of five sons of Vladimir. Yaroslav kills the last of them in 1019 and is accepted as grand prince of Kiev.
         
Vladimir's descendants: AD 1019-1169

The 35-year reign of Vladimir's son Yaroslav establishes Russia, with its capital at Kiev, as a kingdom in the mainstream of medieval Europe. It also secures the throne for a dynasty which survives in direct descent for six centuries (till the time of Boris Godunov), even though those centuries see much diminution of Russian territory and a shift of power from Kiev to Moscow.

Yaroslav turns Kiev into a glorious Christian city in the Byzantine tradition, founding monasteries, adding a spectacular Golden Gate to the town's fortress, and building a cathedral dedicated, like Justinian's great example in Constantinople, to holy wisdom - Santa Sophia.
He also follows Justinian in commissioning a codification of Russia's laws. The legal code known as Russkaya Pravda (Russian Truth) is founded in his reign.

On the international stage Yaroslav plays the medieval game of matrimonial diplomacy as assiduously as any of his contemporaries. He marries his three daughters to kings of Norway, France and Hungary. He also has four sons, guaranteeing on past evidence a frenzy of bloodshed after his death. To avoid this Yaroslav devises a code of inheritance. Surprisingly, for two generations at least, it works.
   

Under Yaroslav's system of inheritance all Russia is to be jointly held by the ruling family. His eldest son is to rule in Kiev, while others are assigned to territories elsewhere. When a prince of Kiev dies, there is to be general post. The next senior brother will move to Kiev, with equivalent adjustments throughout the realm. The principle that brothers take precedence over sons is an essential element of the scheme, for it gives the younger brothers a chance to inherit without risking all in warfare.