214 résultats pour "africana"
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Human Evolution.
Strepsirhines are the most primitive types of living primates. The last common ancestors of strepsirhines and other mammals—creatures similar to tree shrews andclassified as Plesiadapiformes—evolved at least 65 million years ago. The earliest primates evolved by about 55 million years ago, and fossil species similar to lemursevolved during the Eocene Epoch (about 55 million to 38 million years ago). Strepsirhines share all of the basic characteristics of primates, although their brains are notpa...
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Rhinoceros - biology.
Male and female rhinos have a similar physical appearance, although male rhinos are usually larger than females, with the size difference varying between species. Inthe wild, some rhinos probably live into their late 40s, and they have survived into their 30s in captivity. IV TYPES OF RHINOCEROSES Until recently, mammalogists divided the rhinoceros family into three subfamilies, each with different characteristics. Scientists now believe that living rhinos belong to asingle subfamily, although...
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Jazz
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INTRODUCTION
Joshua Redman
Saxophonist Joshua Redman, a graduate of Harvard University, became a fast-rising star in jazz in the 1990s.
performed a highly produced, jazz-inspired form of blues that was popular in traveling minstrel shows and vaudeville. Thisexample is from the song “St. Louis Blues,” written by American composer and trumpet player W. C. Handy in 1914 andrecorded by Smith in 1925."St. Louis Blues" performed by Bessie Smith, from The Riverside History of Classic Jazz (Cat.# Riverside RB-005) Riverside Records under master license to Fantasy, Inc. All rightsreserved./Frank DriggsCollection/Archive Photos Jazz is ro...
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W. E. B. Du Bois - USA History.
VI PEACE ACTIVIST After World War II (1939-1945), Du Bois became increasingly involved in promoting world peace and nuclear disarmament. In 1950 he became chairman of the PeaceInformation Center in New York City, a group whose stated objective was to gather signatures in the United States for a global petition to ban the use of nuclearweapons. In July of that year, after the organization had gathered more than one million U.S. signatures, the Peace Center was labeled a Communist-front organiza...
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Africa.
The highest elevations in Africa are found in the various ranges of East Africa. After Kilimanjaro, the next highest peaks are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft), north ofKilimanjaro in central Kenya; Margherita Peak (5,109 m/ 16,762 ft) in the Ruwenzori Range on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC); Ras Dashen (4,620 m/ 15,157 ft) in the Ethiopian Highlands of northern Ethiopia; Mount Meru (4,565 m/ 14,977 ft), close to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and MountElgon (4,...
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Africa - Geography.
The highest elevations in Africa are found in the various ranges of East Africa. After Kilimanjaro, the next highest peaks are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft), north ofKilimanjaro in central Kenya; Margherita Peak (5,109 m/ 16,762 ft) in the Ruwenzori Range on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC); Ras Dashen (4,620 m/ 15,157 ft) in the Ethiopian Highlands of northern Ethiopia; Mount Meru (4,565 m/ 14,977 ft), close to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and MountElgon (4,...
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Côte d'Ivoire - country.
D Culture Traditional artistic expressions in Côte d’Ivoire include woodcarvings (particularly masks), decorative fabrics, and acrobatic dancing. Urban populations have beengreatly influenced by French culture. The French language is almost universally used in the written literature of Côte d’Ivoire, to the exclusion of the African languages. IV ECONOMY About 60 percent of Côte d’Ivoire’s total labor force is employed in farming and forestry. Government efforts to avoid dependence on a small...
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Africa.
The highest elevations in Africa are found in the various ranges of East Africa. After Kilimanjaro, the next highest peaks are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft), north ofKilimanjaro in central Kenya; Margherita Peak (5,109 m/ 16,762 ft) in the Ruwenzori Range on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC); Ras Dashen (4,620 m/ 15,157 ft) in the Ethiopian Highlands of northern Ethiopia; Mount Meru (4,565 m/ 14,977 ft), close to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and MountElgon (4,...
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Democratic Republic of the Congo - country.
Except in the high elevations, the country’s climate is very hot and humid. The average annual temperature in the low central area is about 27°C (about 80°F).Temperatures are considerably higher in February, the hottest month. At altitudes above about 1,500 m (about 5,000 ft) the average annual temperature is about 19°C(about 66°F). Average annual rainfall is about 1,500 mm (about 60 in) in the north and about 1,300 mm (about 50 in) in the south. Frequent heavy rains occur fromApril to November...
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Immigration.
1655, only to lose all of their North American colonies to the British in 1664. These early colonies were often quite cosmopolitan, drawing settlers from many nations.When the English seized New Amsterdam, the city was home to perhaps 1500 residents, including Walloons, Huguenots, Swedes, Dutchmen, and African Americans. C The French and Spanish The French and Spanish also established colonies in North America. The Spanish established the oldest permanent European settlement in Saint Augustine,...
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Immigration - U.
1655, only to lose all of their North American colonies to the British in 1664. These early colonies were often quite cosmopolitan, drawing settlers from many nations.When the English seized New Amsterdam, the city was home to perhaps 1500 residents, including Walloons, Huguenots, Swedes, Dutchmen, and African Americans. C The French and Spanish The French and Spanish also established colonies in North America. The Spanish established the oldest permanent European settlement in Saint Augustine,...
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Barbados - country.
Barbados is served by a public library system centered in Bridgetown. B Culture The culture of Barbados combines English institutions, which evolved through more than three centuries of English rule, with a folk culture of African origin. Because ofits English traditions, Barbados is sometimes called “Little England.” Cricket has traditionally been the national game, and the island has produced some of the sport’sgreatest players. Water sports including surfing, swimming, snorkeling, and sailin...
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Boston - geography.
The neighborhoods of Allston and Brighton occupy the northwest corner of the city to the west of Fenway. The Allston-Brighton area is bordered to the east, north, andwest by the Charles River and to the south by the Massachusetts Turnpike and the town of Brookline. It is an industrial and residential neighborhood that is also thelocation of Boston College and Harvard University Business School. Boston has been unsuccessful in annexing Brookline, the birthplace of U.S. president John F.Kennedy an...
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Angola (country) - country.
Portugal in 1975, it had approximately 400,000 Portuguese settlers. The vast majority of the Portuguese community has since departed for Portugal. A Population Characteristics The 2008 estimated population of Angola, including Cabinda, was 12,531,357. The population distribution, however, was uneven, with about 70 percent of thepopulation concentrated in the north and along the coast. The rate of population increase was 2.1 percent annually in 2008. The population is overwhelmingly rural; only3...
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éléphant (faune & Flore).
5 COMMUNICATION La communication chez les éléphants, nécessaire à la reconnaissance entre individus et à la cohésion des groupes, est complexe. Elle comprend des signaux visuels(mouvements d’oreilles, postures diverses), olfactifs (reconnaissance de l’odeur des différents individus), tactiles (caresses données avec la trompe) et auditifs(barrissements, mais aussi infrasons, émis par les femelles — départ du groupe, appel des jeunes, etc. — et par le mâle comme la femelle à la saison des amours)...
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Rap
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INTRODUCTION
Jay-Z
Rapper Jay-Z rose to popularity with such albums as Vol.
Run-DMCTypically in rap music, vocalists recite rhyming lyrics in time to a beat that may be sampled from prerecorded music byother groups. Black youths developed rap music on the streets of inner cities in the United States during the 1970s, butthe style has expanded to include a wider variety of performers and audiences. The rap group Run-DMC, shown here, wasa powerful early influence in the genre. The group helped bring rap music into the mainstream when it released “WalkThis Way” (1986), a s...
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Henry Morton Stanley.
VI EVALUATION If Stanley was among the most ruthless and driven of Europe’s African explorers, he also was among the most accomplished. Much of what the Western world came toknow about Central Africa, including the drainage of its lakes and rivers, was derived from Stanley’s explorations. Moreover, he was one of the central figures in eventsleading to the Scramble for Africa. His call for the Christianizing of Africans and for the development of commerce with the interior echoed the call Livin...
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Henry Morton Stanley - explorer.
VI EVALUATION If Stanley was among the most ruthless and driven of Europe’s African explorers, he also was among the most accomplished. Much of what the Western world came toknow about Central Africa, including the drainage of its lakes and rivers, was derived from Stanley’s explorations. Moreover, he was one of the central figures in eventsleading to the Scramble for Africa. His call for the Christianizing of Africans and for the development of commerce with the interior echoed the call Livin...
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Boer War - history.
On January 10, 1900, the British general Frederick S. Roberts was sent to replace Buller as commander in chief. (Buller, however, remained to fight throughout the war.)Early in February, Roberts ordered the British commander John D. P. French north to relieve the city of Kimberley; French’s objective was attained four days later.Simultaneously, Roberts undertook a northeastward march from Cape Colony into the Orange Free State. Attacked by the Afrikaner general Piet Cronje on February 27,Roberts...
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Latin American Music
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INTRODUCTION
Tito Puente Playing the Drums
Since the 1950s American drummer Tito Puente has popularized Latin American music, especially the mambo, in the
United States.
Panpipe Music of BoliviaWell before the Spanish conquest, native peoples such as the Quechua and Aymara living in the Andes Mountains inBolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, developed a rich musical tradition. Panpipes (set of tuned pipes), made of ceramic, sugarcane,or bone were paired with shell trumpets, cane flutes, and drums, which accompanied dancers during religious and secularceremonies. Large ensembles of 4 to 20 panpipe players are still the norm, and Spanish influences have since beenintegrated...
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Cape Verde - country.
station and a submarine cable station at Mindelo still attracted many ships until World War I. Trade increased again toward the middle of the 20th century. In an attempt to avert growing nationalism, Portugal in 1951 designated its African colonies, including Cape Verde, as overseas provinces. The provincial status gaveCape Verdeans access to higher education, but lack of job opportunities and poverty in the islands forced many of the educated to take administrative jobs on theAfrican mainland....
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David Livingstone.
day Zambia) in May 1873. Chuma and Susi buried his heart at the foot of a nearby tree and dried and wrapped Livingstone’s body. They then carried the body, alongwith Livingstone’s papers and instruments, to the Indian Ocean coast and the island of Zanzibar, a trip that lasted nine months. In April 1874 Livingstone’s remainsreached England by boat and were buried in Westminster Abbey in London. The hero’s funeral fixed British attention once more on Africa and Livingstone’s ideas forAfrican progr...
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David Livingstone - explorer.
day Zambia) in May 1873. Chuma and Susi buried his heart at the foot of a nearby tree and dried and wrapped Livingstone’s body. They then carried the body, alongwith Livingstone’s papers and instruments, to the Indian Ocean coast and the island of Zanzibar, a trip that lasted nine months. In April 1874 Livingstone’s remainsreached England by boat and were buried in Westminster Abbey in London. The hero’s funeral fixed British attention once more on Africa and Livingstone’s ideas forAfrican progr...
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Guyana - country.
European patterns of living. People of mixed African and European ancestry form a distinct group in Guyana, maintaining closer social ties to the European communitythan to the African Guyanese community. Asians from the Indian subcontinent began to arrive in the 19th century, following the abolition of slavery in Guyana, to work as indentured and contract laborers. Theycontinued to arrive until 1917, when Britain outlawed indentured servitude. Thousands of Indians chose to remain in Guyana after...
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- L'African National Congress (ANC)
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Ghana - country.
times of depressed cacao prices, Ghana has significantly increased exports of timber to generate needed revenue. In 1988 Ghana initiated a conservation plan called the Forest Resource Management Project. In 1989 Ghana restricted the export of 18 tree species, and in 1994 thecountry banned the export of raw logs. About 4.8 percent (1997) of the country’s land is officially protected, but illegal logging threatens Ghana’s remaining forests. Deforestation, overgrazing, and periodic drought have led...
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Popular Music
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INTRODUCTION
Satchmo Sings "Back O' Town Blues"
One of the founders of instrumental jazz music, American Louis Armstrong, known as Satchmo, also profoundly influenced
vocal jazz and popular song.
disseminating popular music until the 1920s remained printed sheet music. By the late 19th century, the music-publishing business was centralized in New York City,particularly in an area of lower Manhattan called Tin Pan Alley. “After the Ball” (1892) by Charles K. Harris, the first popular song to sell 1 million copies—in this case, ofsheet music—inspired rapid growth in the music-publishing industry. Composers were hired to rapidly produce popular songs by the dozens, and the techniques ofFost...
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American Literature: Drama
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INTRODUCTION
American Literature: Drama, literature intended for performance, written by Americans in the English language.
American plays, while still a minority, began to appear in the theater repertory in the 19th century. Although American plays were still styled after British models, theirsubject matter came to be based on specifically American incidents or themes. In the United States as in Britain, many plays reflected the influence of romanticism , a European literary and artistic movement. Melodrama, with its outpourings of emotion, was the most prevalent dramatic form in the 19th century. Gothic melodramas...
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Folktales
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INTRODUCTION
"Little Red Riding Hood"
The popular children's story "Little Red Riding
seemed important to them. Thus, the Grimms postulated a common Indo-European origin for folktales, and the German philologist Theodor Benfey as well as theScottish writer William Clouston believed that stories diffused by way of travelers migrating east and west from India. Such theories, however, have proven incompleteand inadequate. Nevertheless, the research of these and other scholars greatly stimulated interest in folklore and folktales. The German scholar Max Muller held thatmyths originat...
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Benin - country.
French is the official language of Benin, but most people speak an African language. Each of the country’s ethnic groups has its own language. Fon is the most widelyspoken language. About 52 percent of the population professes traditional religious beliefs, chiefly Vodun, a belief in spirits. Arab merchants introduced Islam to the region, and today it isthe religion of some 20 percent of the people, most of whom live in the north. Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism, is the religion of ab...
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Haiti - country.
Haitian Creole and French are the official languages of Haiti. Haitian Creole, a French-based Creole with influences from West African languages, was made an officiallanguage under the 1987 constitution. It is the mother tongue for nearly the entire population of Haiti and the language of instruction in schools. French is spokenmainly as a second language by a small section of the population. B Religion About 80 percent of Haiti’s people are nominal Roman Catholics, many of them combining an Af...
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San Francisco - geography.
recognized symbol of the city, opened in 1937. It connects San Francisco to Marin County to the north, one of the wealthiest suburban areas in the nation. With the construction of the Bay and Golden Gate bridges and other links from the city to its suburbs, the San Francisco Bay area has become one large metropolitanregion. San Francisco itself is only 122 sq km (47 sq mi) of land area, but the city’s Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (defined by the Census Bureau as SanFrancisco, San Mateo,...
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Dog Family - biology.
muzzles, long and bushy tails, and large ears. Many foxes hunt by stalking prey and then leaping on it with a distinctive, stiff-legged pounce. Once thought to besolitary animals, foxes are now known to live in groups of up to six individuals. The remaining canids are each highly distinctive. Raccoon dogs and bush dogs are the least doglike canids in appearance. Raccoon dogs, found in eastern Asia, havestubby legs, a stout body, short ears, shaggy fur, and a black face mask that resembles a racc...
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Lesotho - country.
V GOVERNMENT Under the terms of the constitution of 1965, which was suspended in 1970, Lesotho was a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature. After a coup in 1986,legislative and executive powers were vested in the king but actually exercised by a 6-member military council and a 20-member council of ministers. In 1993 Lesothoadopted a new constitution that redefined the role of the monarchy and altered the legislative branch of the government. The king, who is head of state, has no...
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Simbabwe - geographie.
5 VERWALTUNG UND POLITIK Nach der Verfassung von 1980 ist Simbabwe eine Präsidialrepublik. Bis zu seiner Suspendierung 2002 bzw. seinem Austritt aus der Gemeinschaft 2003 war das LandMitglied des Commonwealth of Nations. 5.1 Exekutive Die Exekutive liegt beim Staatspräsidenten. Er wird für eine Amtszeit von fünf Jahren (seit 2008; davor sechs Jahre) direkt gewählt und hat sowohl das Amt desStaatsoberhauptes als auch das des Regierungschefs inne. Der Präsident ernennt den Vizepräsidenten und di...
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Plate Tectonics.
ridges. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an underwater mountain range created at a divergent plate boundary in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of a worldwidesystem of ridges made by seafloor spreading. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is currently spreading at a rate of 2.5 cm per year (1 in per year). The mid-ocean ridges today are60,000 km (about 40,000 mi) long, forming the largest continuous mountain chain on earth. Earthquakes, faults, underwater volcanic eruptions, and vents, oropenings, along...
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Elephants.
ARE ELEPHANTS ENDANGERED? African and Asian elephants are now endangered species. People killed elephants for their ivory tusks.People destroyed the forests and grasslands where elephants lived. In the early 1900s, there werebetween 5 million and 10 million elephants living in the wild. By 1979, there were only 1.3 million.Another 600,000 African elephants were killed for their ivory tusks between 1979 and 1989. In 1989,many countries banned ivory sales and took other steps to protect elephants....
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Kwame Nkrumah - history.
Nkrumah guided the Gold Coast to independence in 1957 under the name Ghana, after an ancient West African empire. IV RULER OF GHANA Nkrumah built a strong central government and attempted to unify the country politically and to muster all its resources for rapid economic development. As a proponent ofPan-Africanism, he sought the liberation of the entire continent from colonial rule, offered generous assistance to other African nationalists, and initially pursued a policy ofnonalignment with ei...
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Zambia - country.
The Livingstone Museum, at Livingstone, has a collection relating to the archaeology and natural history of southern Africa. The Institute for African Studies of theUniversity of Zambia publishes studies relating to central Africa. IV ECONOMY The wealth of Zambia is based largely on mining in the rich copper belt, and downturns in copper prices have severely damaging economic consequences. Someprocessing and manufacturing has been started since independence, and during the 1970s attempts were...
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Uganda - country.
Uganda’s population is predominantly rural and is concentrated in the south, particularly in the crescent at the edge of Lake Victoria and in the southwest. Almost allUgandans are black Africans. Foreign residents make up less than 4 percent of the population and come mostly from neighboring states. In 2008 Uganda’s population was estimated at 31,367,972. The estimated growth rate of the population in 2008 was 3.6 percent. The birth rate was 48 per 1,000people and the death rate 12 per 1,000. Th...
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Botswana - country.
at birth was 50.2 years, also a significant improvement. The urban population of Botswana has increased rapidly, from 18 percent of the total in 1981 to 51 percent in 2003. Gaborone, the capital, is the largest city and mainbusiness center. Other business centers are Francistown, Selebi-Pikwe, Molepolole, Kanye, and Serowe. Botswana received its name from the country’s principal ethnic group, the Tswana. Other ethnic groups include the Kgalagadi, Kalanga, and Basarwa. There are also asmall numbe...
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Cuba - country.
Only two land mammals, the hutia, or cane rat, and the solenodon, a rare insectivore that resembles a rat, are known to be indigenous. The island has numerous batsand nearly 300 kinds of birds, including vultures, wild turkeys, quail, finches, gulls, macaws, parakeets, and hummingbirds. The bee hummingbird of Cuba is thesmallest bird in the world. Among the few reptiles are tortoises, caimans, the Cuban crocodile, and a species of boa that can attain a length of 3.7 m (12 ft). More than700 speci...
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Essay : Stranger in the village
people are courteous, he still can feel that he is not welcomed in this village where people are racist and narrow-minded. The reactions of the villagers can partially be explained by their lack of culture and their narrow-mindedness. Indeed, these people live in a tiny village which is cut of the outside world. They have to go to the village at the foot of the mountain to see a movie or go to the bank as there is no movie house, no bank nor library in the village. It seems that p...
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Sudan - country.
B Principal Cities and Political Divisions The principal city is Khartoum, the capital; other major cities include Omdurman and Khartoum North, major industrial centers, and Port Sudan, a seaport on the RedSea. Sudan is divided into 26 states. C Religion and Language About 70 percent of the people of Sudan are Muslims, some 15 percent are Christians, and most of the remainder follow traditional religions. The people of northernSudan are predominantly Sunni Muslims (Sunni Islam). Most of the pe...
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Trinidad and Tobago - country.
III PEOPLE The history of Trinidad and Tobago is reflected in the makeup of its population, among the most ethnically diverse in the Caribbean. Blacks of African ancestry andAsians of Indian ancestry each make up about 40 percent of the population. The remainder is mainly of mixed ancestry, although there are also small groups of peopleof Chinese, European, South American, and Middle Eastern descent. The ethnic diversity of Trinidad and Tobago owes its origins to slavery and its abolition. Afr...
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American Music
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INTRODUCTION
American Music, the folk, popular, and classical music of the United States--created by American-born or American-trained composers, or originating in American
culture, or written primarily for American audiences.
The country's first permanent orchestra was the New York Philharmonic Society, founded in 1842. Among the first symphonic and operatic composers the mostprominent was William Henry Fry, who composed the first opera by an American ( Leonora, 1845). Fry is best remembered, however, for four symphonies written in the 1850s and 1860s. George F. Bristow wrote the first opera on an American theme; his Rip Van Winkle was performed in New York City in 1855. Town bands, a popular form of community mu...
- La Communauté économique Est-africaine (EAC: East African Community)
- ANC (African National Congress of South Africa).
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Republic of the Congo - country.
rate of 50 CFA francs equal to 1 French franc was in force from 1948 to 1994, when the CFA franc was devalued by 50 percent. The leading commercial banks are theBanque Internationale du Congo and the Union Congolaise de Banques. E Foreign Trade In 2000 imports cost $930 million and exports earned $2.09 billion. The Congo engages in considerable trade with the nearby countries of Cameroon, the CentralAfrican Republic, and Gabon, with which it is joined in the Customs and Economic Union of Centra...
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Smithsonian Institution.
F Arthur M. Sackler Gallery The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery houses a permanent collection of art from China, South and Southeast Asia, ancient and Islamic Iran, and Japan. Changing exhibitions ofAsian art are drawn from collections in the United States and abroad. The core of the collection was a gift from American research physician and medical publisherArthur M. Sackler. G Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum The Cooper-Hewitt is located in New York City and features examples of historical an...