query: When did Ontario get founded?

title: History of Ontario

text: A political stalemate between the French- and English-speaking legislators, as well as fear of aggression from the United States during the American Civil War, led the political elite to hold a series of conferences in the 1860s to effect a broader federal union of all British North American colonies. The British North America Act took effect on July 1, 1867, establishing the Dominion of Canada, initially with four provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. The Province of Canada was divided at this point into Ontario and Quebec so that each major European linguistic group would have its own province.

title: Joseph Roberts (motivational speaker)

text: Joe Roberts was born November 25, 1966 and was raised in Midland, Ontario. Roberts’ father died in 1978 when Roberts was 8. Roberts struggled with low self-esteem1. At the age of nine, he started using drugs and quickly moved on to alcohol, marijuana, LSD, cocaine, and eventually heroin. He left home at 15 due to family conflict and the inability to get along with his stepfather. After being imprisoned at 16, he dropped out of Barrie North Collegiate at 18 and began regular intravenous drug use. At 19, Roberts relocated to Vancouver and within 90 days found himself homeless, living on the streets of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, pushing a shopping cart and collecting cans and bottles to support a drug dependency1. Shortly before Christmas in 1989, Roberts contacted his mother (who was located in Midhurst, Ontario) and she helped him relocate back to Ontario. After a suicide attempt, prevented and intervened by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Constable Scott MacLeod, Joe entered the Alcohol and Drug Intensive Treatment Program in Belleville, Ontario in 19911.

title: 2007 Ontario electoral reform referendum

text: According to LeDuc et al, "Elections Ontario interpreted its information mandate quite narrowly, and did not inform the public of the substance of the proposal or the competing arguments in favour of or against it." Citizens were expected to get the information they needed from various websites or from the press. Remarkably, although the Citizens' Assembly had produced a shorter version of their report and a short leaflet further summarizing it, Elections Ontario distributed neither, to the surprise and disappointment of the Citizens' Assembly. By contrast in British Columbia, the Citizens' Assembly material was distributed to every household.

title: Philip Kelly (Canadian politician)

text: In the early 1950s, Trans-Canada Pipeline was building a natural gas pipeline eastward across Canada. When it reached Ontario, it said that it would not build branch pipelines to individual communities and sought local Ontario companies to provide that service. Kelly's nephew, Gordon McLean co-founded a company called Northern Ontario Natural Gas (NONG) to supply natural gas to northern Ontario communities. While Kelly did not own shares in the company, he gave $5,000 to McLean for startup funds in NONG and made an agreement with McLean to share any profits.

title: LeBel Royal Commission

text: As Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, "We found that Premier Drew and Gladstone Murray did not disclose all information to the Lebel Commission; indeed, they deliberately prevaricated throughout. The head of the Government of Ontario had given false witness under testimony... The perpetrator of Ontario's Watergate got away with it." Former Ontario CCF and Ontario NDP leader, Donald C. MacDonald attempted to get the report reopened when the new evidence became public in 1981. He was still a member of the Ontario Legislature, and asked the Attorney General Roy McMurtry to reopen the Commission on 2 December 1981. McMurty refused to reopen the case, because almost everyone involved was dead and the commission already made its ruling in 1945.

title: Ojibwe writing systems

text: James Evans, a missionary from Kingston upon Hull, UK, had prepared the "Speller and Interpreter in English and Indian"  in 1837, but was unable to get its printing sanctioned by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Evans continued to use his Ojibwe writing system in his work in Ontario. However, his students appear to have had conceptual difficulties working with the same alphabet for two different languages with very different sounds. Furthermore, the structure of the Ojibwe language made most words quite long when spelled with Latin letters, and Evans himself found this approach awkward. His book also noted differences in the Ojibwe dialectual field. The "default" dialect was the Ojibwemowin spoken at Rice Lake, Ontario (marked as "RL"). The other two were Credit, Ontario, (marked as "C") and areas to the west (marked as "W").

title: Tweed, Ontario

text: The Tweed Forest Fire District was founded by the former Ontario Department of Lands and Forests (now the MNR) in 1922 as one of 17 districts to help protect Ontario's forests from fire by early detection from fire towers. The headquarters for the district were housed at Hungerford Road in town. It was the central headquarters for 21 fire lookout towers. When a fire was spotted in the forest a towerman would get the degree bearings from his respective tower and radio back the information to headquarters. When one or more towermen from other towers in the area would also call in their bearings, the forest rangers at headquarters could get a 'triangulation' read and plot the exact location of the fire on their map. This way a team of forest firefighters could be dispatched as soon as possible to get the fire under control. In 1958 the -tall Hungerford firetower was erected beside the station. However, in the 1970s all the towers had been decommissioned as aerial firefighting techniques were employed. The Hungerford tower was disassembled in 1996 and placed behind the Tweed Heritage Centre.

title: Helga Plumb

text: Plumb enjoyed working alongside her husband and did so until her retirement in 2001. Plumb once stated, “I’m not sure I would get jobs if clients didn’t know I had a male back-up.” It was not uncommon for people in Ontario to believe women needed a male-presence to make an impact in architecture. Female architects based out of Ontario commonly noted that they felt intimidated by the extremely male-dominated field. On the other hand, many female architects based out of Quebec said they did not and would often get offended by any suggestion that they needed to rely on their male co-workers to make it in the industry.

title: Josh Willis (Neighbours)

text: Josh and Amber eventually grew close when she helped him with his homework and after sharing a kiss, they began dating. The couple later broke up and when Amber saw Josh chatting to another girl at a party, she decided to get even. After being introduced to Clay Blair (Charlie Terrier), Amber kissed him. At the same time, Josh was looking for Amber and Rosenow explained "Josh was trying to get away from the girl. When he finally does, he goes to find Amber." Josh eventually found Amber and witnessed the kiss, leaving him devastated. While Amber was unaware that Josh had seen her with Clay, Imogen did and found herself stuck in the middle of her best friend and brother. Rosenow commented that Imogen was all too aware that Josh did not have a good track record and she did not want Amber to get hurt. Amber later agreed to go on a date with Clay, leaving Josh convinced that they would not get back together.

title: Brockville

text: Founded in 1963, the Brockville Braves are the second oldest team that has never ceased operation in CJHL history—second only to Pembroke. In the 1979, the teams was the focus of national attention when they were left homeless due to their arena collapsing. This did not stop the Braves though, playing their home games out of Cardinal and Rockland, Ontario, the Braves did not miss a beat.

title: Corruption in Canada

text: Ontario's Liberal government has been accused of corruption for its dealings with teachers' unions (Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario). According to accusations, the Liberal government offers "rich contracts, special treatment, secret agreements and generous payoffs with public dollars" for the teachers' unions, and other unions in return for helping the Liberal government get elected and stay in power. An investigation in "The Globe and Mail" found that the Ontario government has offered more than $3.7 million in secret payments to teachers' unions.

title: Anything But Conservative

text: The agreement, known as the Atlantic Accord, was unpopular in the rest of Canada as it was considered unfair to other provinces. It was particularly criticized by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. While Ontario was traditionally one of Confederation's "have" provinces, while Newfoundland was a "have-not", this has changed in recent years. McGuinty complained that his province - already sending more money to the federal government than it gets back in equalization payments - would get further shortchanged as the accord permitted Newfoundland to keep its oil revenues rather than sharing it with the other provinces. While the accord did prolong the federal Liberal government's time in power, it was viewed as "short-term gain for long-term pain" as Paul Martin gained a reputation for doing or saying whatever was possible in order to stay in power, something that caused Ontario voters to become disenchanted with the Liberals.

title: Hans Bethe

text: At age 85, Bethe wrote an important article about the solar neutrino problem, in which he helped establish the conversion mechanism for electron neutrinos into muon neutrinos proposed by Stanislav Mikheyev, Alexei Smirnov and Lincoln Wolfenstein to explain a vexing discrepancy between theory and experiment. Bethe argued that physics beyond the Standard Model was required to understand the solar neutrino problem, because it assumed that neutrinos have no mass, and therefore cannot metamorphosize into each other; whereas the MSW effect required this to occur. Bethe hoped that corroborating evidence would be found by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Ontario, Canada, by his 90th birthday, but he did not get the call from SNO until June 2001, when he was nearly 95.

title: Ontario Scotties Tournament of Hearts

text: National champions are indicated in bold. Teams from Northern Ontario are indicated in "italics", as prior to 2015, Northern Ontario did not have their own provincial championship. National champions get an automatic bye into the following years' national championships, so they cannot defend their provincial championship. A national championship has been held since 1962, although the provincial women's championship has been held since 1956.

title: List of United Farmers/Labour MLAs in the Ontario legislature

text: The United Farmers of Ontario entered politics by contesting a 1918 by-election which was won by UFO candidate Beniah Bowman. The next year, in the 1919 provincial election in Ontario they achieved a major political upset by winning enough seats to form a government in alliance with Labour MLAs in the Ontario legislature (also listed). The UFO did not have a leader until after the 1919 election when Ernest Charles Drury was asked by the caucus to serve as Premier of Ontario. As he did not have a seat in the legislature he had to enter via a by-election.Three candidates were elected under the Patrons of Industry banner in the 1894 general election:

title: Mennonite Church Canada

text: The first Mennonites in Canada arrived from Pennsylvania in 1786. The majority of the Mennonites that migrated to Canada over the next 150 years came directly from Europe. The first annual meeting of Mennonite ministers was held in 1810, which eventually led to founding the "Mennonite Conference of Ontario" (later the "Mennonite Conference of Ontario and Quebec"). The "Conference of Mennonites in Central Canada" was formed in 1903. When other bodies arriving in Canada began to settle outside this "central" base, the name was changed to the "General Conference of Mennonites in Canada" in 1932 (later the "Conference of Mennonites in Canada"). The "Ontario Amish Mennonite Conference" (later "Western Ontario Mennonite Conference") was founded in 1923, and the "Conference of United Mennonite Churches in Ontario" in 1945. In 1988, the "Western Ontario Mennonite Conference", the "Conference of United Mennonite Churches in Ontario" and the "Mennonite Conference of Ontario and Quebec" united to form the "Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada".

title: Alien Spidy

text: Critics near universally took issue with the game's controls. Critics found that the webs that they shot did not go where they wanted them to go, and multiple reviewers described navigation as "trial and error". Reviewers also found that they could not always jump when they wanted to, and one reviewer found that power-ups failed to activate when she wanted them to. Reviewers also complained that it was extremely difficult to get enough stars to progress from one stage to the next, forcing players to replay the same levels over and over again. Because points are subtracted each time Spidy dies, the problems with the control scheme exacerbate how difficult it is to get enough stars to progress.

title: Pembroke, Ontario

text: The "Pembroke Forest Fire District" was founded by Ontario's former "Department of Lands and Forests" (now the MNR) in 1922 as one of 17 districts to help protect Ontario's forests from fire by early detection from fire towers. The headquarters for the district were housed in the town. It was the central location for 15 fire tower lookouts, including the towers in Algonquin Park. The 15 towers included: Wilberforce, Mt. Edna, Sherwood, Murchison, Preston, Clancy, Fitzgerald, Brent, Big Crow Lake, White Trout Lake, Stonecliffe, Deux Rivières, Osler, Lauder and Skymount. When a fire was spotted in the forest a towerman would get the degree bearings from his respective tower and radio back the information to headquarters. When one or more towermen from other towers in the area would also call in their bearings, the forest rangers at headquarters could get a 'triangulation' read and plot the exact location of the fire on their map. This way a team of forest firefighters could be dispatched as soon as possible to get the fire under control. These towers would all be phased out after aerial fire fighting techniques were employed in the 1970s.

title: Port Sandfield, Ontario

text:
Port Sandfield is a community on Lake Rosseau in Ontario, Canada, located within and governed by the municipality of Muskoka Lakes.
It was founded in 1870, when a canal was built connecting Lake Joseph to Lake Rosseau.
Alexander Peter Cockburn, a member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament and founder and first President of the Muskoka Settlers’ Association played a leading role in getting the canal funded. The canal was funded at the same time as a lock at Port Carling.
The canal and lock allowed a fleet of steamboats to carry freight, mail, cargo and timber over the three largest lakes in the county of Muskoka.

title: Frontenac Flyers

text: The Frontenac Flyers were founded in 1989 as members of the Eastern Ontario Junior C Hockey League. They get their name from the county in which Verona is located, Frontenac County, Ontario.

title: Parry Sound District

text: Along with the neighbouring Muskoka and Haliburton regions, the Parry Sound District is considered part of Ontario's cottage country region. The district is commonly divided into two subregions; West Parry Sound and East Parry Sound, the latter often referred to as the Almaguin Highlands.The Parry Sound Forest Fire District was founded by Ontario's former Department of Lands and Forests (now the MNR) in 1922 as one of 17 districts to help protect Ontario's forests from fire by early detection from fire towers. The headquarters for the district were housed in the town of Parry Sound. It was the central location for 21 fire tower lookouts, including the Parry Sound fire tower, which was erected in the same location as the modern lookout tower at 17 George Street. The other 20 towers in the district were: Pickerel River CPR, Byng Inlet, Still River, Pointe au Baril, Pakesley, Pickerel River CNR, Key Junction, Ardbeg, Spence, Go Home, Loring, Stormy Lake (Restoule), Nipissing, Boulter, Lount, Laurier, Strong, Proudfoot, Stisted and Draper. When a fire was spotted in the forest a towerman would get the degree bearings from his respective tower and radio back the information to headquarters. When one or more towermen from other towers in the area would also call in their bearings, the forest rangers at headquarters could get a 'triangulation' read and plot the exact location of the fire on their map. This way a team of forest firefighters could be dispatched as soon as possible to get the fire under control. In 1969 there remained only 4 actively manned towers: Ardbeg, Go Home, Stormy Lake, and Boulter. These would all be phased out shortly after when aerial fire fighting techniques were employed in the 1970s.

title: Deloro, Ontario

text: Seven gardens in Deloro gave soil and vegetables from their gardens. While the soil samples tended to be higher than those typically found in Ontario, the vegetables did not contain elevated contaminants.

title: CFB North Bay

text: In 1960 the staging detachment was changed from a fighter to a TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation) unit. RCAF Station North Bay also operated a second TACAN unit at Kapuskasing, in Northern Ontario. "TACAN" is a radio navigation beacon that helps military aircrew determine their location and direction of flight. In the 1950s and 1960s it was an indispensable aid when traversing the vast Canadian wilderness landscape. Flight computers in aircraft then were Stone Age compared to today, and navigation-assistance systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) did not exist. To get lost over Canada presented airmen with the prospect of running out of fuel and having to eject or crash-land in some of the wildest territory in North America. Wrecks and bodies were sometimes not found for weeks, months or years; some have never been found. To give an idea of the roughness of the Canadian wilderness: even though authorities knew the general location, it took four years to find a rocket pod full of live rockets that had jettisoned from a jet fighter in 1958 when a switch malfunctioned.

title: Russian Schnapsen

text: In case player who did not win bidding gets zero tricks by the end of the game round, in addition to zero points he gets special mark, called bolt or strike-through. There marks are stored in the game table until player gets third such mark, when third time player gets zero points in the round when he did not win bidding, previous two marks are removed (crossed-out) and player gets minus 120 points for this round.

title: Les Bartley

text: When the MILL became the NLL in 1998, the league added its first Canadian franchise: the Ontario Raiders, who played in Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. Bartley, a native of nearby St. Catharines, Ontario, helped get the new franchise off the ground. In 1999, the Ontario Raiders moved to Toronto and became the Toronto Rock. Les coached the Rock to four championships in five years.

title: Drummond White

text: In December 1992, White moved a resolution advocating the creation of a regulating body for social workers in Ontario. At the time, Ontario was the only province that did not have a regulating body for social workers. A spokesman for the Ministry of Social Services said that legislation for social work was a low priority. While he was not successful in getting a bill passed during his time as MPP, a similar bill called the "Social Work and Social Service Work Act" was enacted in 1998. Drummond was the final witness and speaker before the legislative committee that dealt with the bill and was pleased when this legislation was finally enacted.

title: Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section)

title: R v Bartle

text: The trial was held in the Ontario Court of Justice (Provincial Division). Bartle testified he waived his rights to counsel because he did not know who to call or who he could get hold of. The trial judge found there was no requirement for the police to advise Bartle of the existence of duty counsel or the toll-free number, and that there was no "Charter" infringement.

title: The Boy Who Found Fear At Last

text: He found robbers and sat with them by their fire. When they realized he did not fear them, they gave him the ingredients and sent him to a churchyard to cook them a cake. A hand from the grave asked for it, but the boy said that he did not give the food of the living to the dead, and rapped it with a spoon. Then they sent him to a pool. He found there a swing hanging over the pool with a child on it. A maiden told him that it was her brother and asked if she could climb on his shoulders to get him down; when he did, she started to strangle him with her feet. He threw her off, and she lost a bracelet that he took up.

title: Massasauga

text: "S. c. catenatus" is rather shy and avoids humans when it can. Most massasauga snakebites in Ontario have occurred after people deliberately handled or accidentally stepped on one of these animals. Both of these scenarios are preventable by avoiding hiking through areas of low visibility (in rattlesnake country) when not wearing shoes and long pants, and by leaving the massasaugas alone when they are found. There are only two recorded incidents of people dying from massasauga rattlesnake bites in Ontario and in both cases they did not receive proper treatment. Recent studies indicate that Ontario hospitals in rattlesnake country often do not have anti-venom, as massasauga specific anti-venom is not easy to come by.

title: Ontario Student Assistance Program

text: Students can get ready now by registering with OSAP. They’ll create their OSAP profile and get an OSAP Access Number (OAN). When the application opens in spring 2017, students will get a message from OSAP that it’s time to apply.


query: What is the population of Afghanistan?

title: Demographics of Afghanistan

text: The population of Afghanistan is around 33 million as of 2016,[1] which includes the roughly 3 million Afghan citizens living as refugees in both Pakistan and Iran.[5] The nation is composed of a multi-ethnic and multilingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between Central Asia, Southern Asia, and Western Asia. Its largest ethnic group is the Pashtun, followed by Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch and a few others.[1][6]

title: Farsiwan

text: The cartographer Michael Izady does not make a Tajik specific distinction and defines Parsiwans as "urbanites of any ethnic background who speak only Persian and have lost all their ethnic and tribal affiliations." In his 2013 study he found that 4.2% of Afghanistan's population were Parsiwans and that the group were historically the most likely ethnic group to be employed in the government as bureaucrats and that "most of what people in the West know about Afghanistan has come to them through these three Persian-speaking minorities [Tajiks, Kizilbash and Parsiwans]."

title: Hinduism in Afghanistan

text: When Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni began crossing the Indus River into Hindustan (land of Hindus) in the 10th century, the Ghaznavid Muslims began bringing Hindu slaves to what is now Afghanistan. Al-Idirisi testifies that until as late as the 12th century, a contract of investiture for every Shahi king was performed at Kabul and that here he was obliged to agree to certain ancient conditions which completed the contract. The Ghaznavid military incursions assured the domination of Sunni Islam in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan. Various historical sources such as Martin Ewans, E.J. Brill and Farishta have recorded the introduction of Islam to Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan to the conquests of and Mahmud:

title: Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD)

text: BIFAD, in coordination with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) held a meeting on the US agricultural strategy in Afghanistan. Attending were representatives from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department, the U.S. Central Command, the National Guard Bureau and the U.S. Marine Corp, and 21 representatives of Title XII institutions. The discussion concerned the institutional development of the Ministry of Agriculture in Afghanistan. With 80% of Afghanistan's population depending on agriculture, such development was seen as essential to prevent insurgencies, create employment opportunities, and the development of the country. After the meeting a working group with representatives form the USDA, USAID, and Universities was created to continue meeting regularly to discuss what could be done for Agricultural "research, learning and extension competencies in Afghanistan to develop strategies and opportunities to expand long-term training."

title: Environmental issues in Afghanistan

text: Environmental issues in Afghanistan predate the political turmoil of the past few decades. Forests and wetlands have been depleted by centuries of grazing and farming, practices which have only increased with modern population growth. In Afghanistan, environmental conservation and economic concerns are not at odds; with 80% of the population dependent on herding or farming, the welfare of the environment is critical to the economic welfare of the people. In 2007, the World Health Organization released a report ranking Afghanistan as the lowest among non-African nations in deaths from environmental hazards.

title: Daud Junbish

text: Over his career with BBC, Junbish has written a number of books on Afghanistan, including "What Is Really Happening in Afghanistan?", "24 Hours That Turned Afghanistan Around", and "Red Army in Afghanistan". He has also written two textbooks for Kabul University's journalism faculty.

title: Education in Afghanistan

text: Education in Afghanistan includes K–12 and higher education, which is greatly supervised by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan is going through a nationwide rebuilding process and, despite setbacks, institutions are established across the country. By 2013 there were 10.5 million students attending schools in Afghanistan, a country with a population of around 27.5 million people.

title: Pashtun diaspora

text: India, as a British colony, once had a large Pashtun population roughly equal to that of Afghanistan, mostly concentrated in what were then the British Indian provinces of the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. In Rohilkhand, they made large settlements subsequent to 14th century and prior to the 20th century. In fact, according to the 1911 edition of "Encyclopædia Britannica", the number of Pashtuns in all of the British Raj was nearly 31 million, but the speakers of Pashto numbered less than 14 million. Most of this population was allotted, along with its respective provinces, to Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. Today the Pashtuns in India can be divided into those who speak Pashto and those who speak Urdu/Hindi and other regional languages, the Urdu/Hindi speaking group being the biggest. Khan Mohammad Atif, a professor at the University of Lucknow, estimates that "The population of Pathans in India is twice their population in Afghanistan".

title: United States invasion of Afghanistan

text: On 28 September Bush commented "First, there is no negotiations with the Taliban. They heard what I said. And now they can act. And it's not just Mr. bin Laden that we expect to see and brought to justice; it's everybody associated with his organization that's in Afghanistan. And not only those directly associated with Mr. bin Laden, any terrorist that is housed and fed in Afghanistan needs to be handed over. And finally, we expect there to be complete destruction of terrorist camps. That's what I told them; that's what I mean. And we expect them— we expect them to not only hear what I say but to do something about it."

title: Pashtun colonization of northern Afghanistan

text: Between the 1910s and the 1940s, many ethnic Pashtun herders settled in Afghan Turkestan. From the 1930s to the 1970s, after the ethnically Tajik Habibullah Kalakani attempted and failed to seize power in Afghanistan in 1929, ethnic Uzbeks and ethnic Tajiks lost hundreds of thousands of acres of pasture and cultivated land in northern Afghanistan. Afterwards, this land was sold or outright given to ethnic Pashtun settlers, further increasing Pashtun influence in northern Afghanistan. During this time, Pashtun settlers in Takhar Province pushed Moghol, Tajik, and Qarluq farmers as well as Uzbek herders out of irrigated lowlands and into foothills with little agricultural value. As a result of the 19th and 20th century Pashtun colonization policies that Afghan governments pursued, Pashtuns became the dominant ethnic group in the developed agricultural areas in northern Afghanistan, while other ethnic groups (especially the Uzbeks) came to dominate in the underdeveloped foothills. By the start of the 1970s, ethnic Pashtuns constituted 56% of the total population in the Baghlan area, 61% of the total population in the Puli Khumri area, 41% of the total population in the Tajik-plurality Kunduz area, 45% of the total population in the Khanabad area, and just 10% of the total population in the Uzbek-majority Taloqan area.

title: List of cities in Afghanistan

text: The chart below shows 19 cities of Afghanistan with a population over 100,000, by order of population.

title: Ghazni District

text: Like in the rest of Afghanistan, no exact population numbers are available. The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation & Development (MRRD) along with UNHCR and Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Afghanistan estimates the population of the district to be around 154,618. According to AIMS and UNHCR, Tajiks make up 50% of the population, followed by Hazaras and Pashtuns, 50%.

title: Demographics of Afghanistan

text: As of 2016, the total population of Afghanistan is around 33,332,025,[1] which includes the 3 million Afghan nationals living in both Pakistan and Iran.[5] Afghanistan's Central Statistics Organization (CSO) stated in 2011 that the total number of Afghans living inside Afghanistan was about 26 million and by 2017 it reached 29.2 million. Of this, 15 million are males and 14.2 million are females.[8] About 22% of the population is urbanite and the remaining 78% live in rural areas.[5]

title: List of airports in Afghanistan

text: Afghanistan has 4 international airports which is expected to increase to five by the end of 2014. The Kabul International Airport serves the population of Kabul and the surrounding areas, Mazar-e Sharif International Airport serves northern Afghanistan, Kandahar International Airport serves the southern parts of the country and Herat International Airport serves the population of western Afghanistan.

title: Central Asian Arabic

text: Central Asian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and currently facing extinction. It was once spoken among Central Asia's numerous settled and nomadic Arab communities, which inhabited areas in Samarqand, Bukhara, Qashqadarya, Surkhandarya (present-day Uzbekistan), and Khatlon (present-day Tajikistan), as well as Afghanistan. The first wave of Arabs migrated to this region in the 8th century during the Muslim conquests and was later joined by groups of Arabs from Balkh and Andkhoy (present-day Afghanistan). Owing to heavy Islamic influences, Arabic quickly became the common language of science and literature of the epoch. Most Central Asian Arabs lived in isolated communities and did not favour intermarriages with the local population. This factor helped their language survive in a multilingual milieu until the 20th century. By the 1880s many Arab pastoralists had migrated to northern Afghanistan from what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan following the Russian conquest of Central Asia. These Arabs nowadays speak no Arabic having adapted to Dari and Uzbek.

title: Gulnaz (Afghan)

text: Gulnaz's case not only attracted international attention, but also posed primitive questions about the veracity of governance in Afghanistan. Speaking to the BBC correspondent Caroline Wyatt, Gulnaz said, "I don't want to have anything to do with Afghanistan government again, because they put innocent people in prison. What kind of government is this? What kind of Afghanistan is this? My attacker committed a crime, and they arrested me!"

title: Herat Province

text: Herat (persian/Dari: هرات) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the western part of the country. Together with Badghis, Farah, and Ghor provinces, it makes up the north-western region of Afghanistan. Its primary city and administrative capital is Herat City. The province of Herat is divided into about 17 districts and contains over 1,000 villages. It has a population of about 1,780,000, making it the second most populated province in Afghanistan behind Kabul Province. The population is multi-ethnic but largely Persian-speaking.

title: Afghanistan–Tajikistan border

text: Tensions mounted as the Russians expanded further into what is now Turkmenistan in the early 1880s, reaching a crisis with the Panjdeh incident (near Sandykachi in what is now Turkmenistan), an area claimed by Afghanistan. Discussions calmed the situation and a joint Anglo-Russian boundary commission demarcated the boundary as it is today over the period 1885-88. As the village of Khwaja Salar could no longer be identified it was agreed that the boundary should meet the Amu Darya in the vicinity of Khamiab, Afghanistan.

title: Demographics of Afghanistan

text: Structure of the population (2012.01.07) (Data refer to the settled population based on the 1979 Population Census and the latest household prelisting. The refugees of Afghanistan in Iran, Pakistan, and an estimated 1.5 million nomads, are not included):

title: U.S.–Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement

text: As allied forces proceed to withdrawal troops, the international community wants to help and ensure that Afghanistan has security, political, and economic progress and to instill transparency and fairness of the elections. However, while the Afghanistan parliament endorsed the BSA in 2013, Afghan President Harmid Karzai refuses as of February 6, 2014, to sign i.e., approve the BSA. Presidential elections in Afghanistan are scheduled for April 2014 and the BSA is what is pending for the withdrawal of U.S. military and NATO forces. If it doesn't get signed and a civil war breaks out, the Taliban can easily regain their hold on the country, the most vulnerable citizens of the population, primarily women and children, stand to lose most. The possibility looms even greater if Karzai doesn't sign the BSA.

title: Pakistanis in Afghanistan

text: Pakistanis in Afghanistan are mostly refugees, but also include laborers, traders, businesspersons, and small number of diplomats. Because Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighbouring states with a loosely controlled border, and a distributed population of ethnic Pashtuns and Baloch people, there is constant flow of population between the two countries.

title: Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan

text: The size of the American military presence after 2014 will help determine the size of the American civilian footprint. As of December 2012 the United States are reducing its plans for large civilian force in post-2014 Afghanistan, because the U.S. military is certain to curtail or stop the security and other services it provides U.S. government civilians in Afghanistan. Firm decisions on civilian numbers and locations cannot be made "until we resolve exactly what the military follow-on numbers are going to be," one unnamed U.S. official said. "That will determine . . . where we locate, what kind of security, medical and other support we might be able to get." According to the New York Times the U.S. military wants to retain 9,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while the Obama administration wants a force of 3,000 to 9,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

title: Miscegenation

text: Genetic analysis of the Hazara people indicate partial Mongolian ancestry. Invading Mongols and Turco-Mongols mixed with the local Iranian population, forming a distinct group. Mongols settled in what is now Afghanistan and mixed with native populations who spoke Persian. A second wave of mostly Chagatai Mongols came from Central Asia and were followed by other Mongolic groups, associated with the Ilkhanate and the Timurids, all of whom settled in Hazarajat and mixed with the local, mostly Persian-speaking population, forming a distinct group.

title: Interracial marriage

title: Janikhel District (Paktia)

text: Like in the rest of Afghanistan, no exact population numbers are available. The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation & Development (MRRD) along with UNHCR and Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Afghanistan estimated the population of the district to be around 40,340 (CSO 2004). According to the same sources, Pashtuns make up 100% of the total population.

title: Ross Kemp in Afghanistan

text: The series was criticised for not dealing with the rights or wrongs of British policy in Afghanistan, however Kemp stated "we did not go to make a so-called traditional documentary, we tried to show was what the ordinary soldiers are facing" and "My documentary is about what it is like to be a British soldier in Afghanistan." While the series was not to be a political piece according to Kemp, he did consider the Iraq invasion was "a mistake", but believed the British involvement in Afghanistan to be a just war.

title: Janikhel District (Paktika)

title: Tsamkani District

text: Like in the rest of Afghanistan, no exact population numbers are available. The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation & Development (MRRD) along with UNHCR and Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Afghanistan estimated the population of the district to be around 58,560 (CSO 2004). According to the same sources, Pashtuns make up 100% of the total population.

title: List of populated places in Afghanistan

text: This is an alphabetical list of populated places in Afghanistan, including hamlets, villages, towns, and other small or rural communities. For urban areas and cities, and other densely populated places, see list of cities in Afghanistan. Provinces and districts are listed at their respective articles.

title: Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border

title: Afghanistan–Turkmenistan border


query: When was Athletic Bilbao established?

title: Athletic Bilbao

text: The club is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division since its inception in 1929, the others being Real Madrid and Barcelona. Athletic have won La Liga on eight occasions, fourth most in the history of the league. In the table of Copa del Rey titles, Athletic is second only to Barcelona, having won it 24 times (per the team's official records; the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) recognizes 23 victories). The club also has one of the most successful women's teams in Spain, which has won five championships in the Primera División Femenina.

title: List of Athletic Bilbao managers

text: Athletic Bilbao is a professional association football club based in Bilbao, Spain, which plays in La Liga. This chronological list comprises all those who have held the position of manager of the first team of Athletic Bilbao from 1910, when the first professional manager was appointed, to the present day. Each manager's entry includes his dates of tenure, honours won and significant achievements while under his care.

title: Athletic Bilbao B

text: The team went on tour to raise funds for the Basque cause, and also played in Europe and Mexico. However, the "Campeonato de Vizcaya" continued to be played. With their best players on tour with the Basque team, Athletic could only field weakened sides and, as a result, chose to enter under the name "Bilbao Athletic"; the club's name was derived from the two clubs that merged in 1903 to become Athletic Bilbao – "Bilbao Football Club" and "Athletic Club". Despite this, they still won the championship and entered the 1939 Copa del Generalísimo.

title: Atlético Madrid

text:
The club was founded on 26 April 1903 as "Athletic Club Sucursal de Madrid" by three Basque students living in Madrid. These founders saw the new club as a youth branch of their childhood team, Athletic Bilbao who they had just seen win the 1903 Copa del Rey Final  in the city. In 1904, they were joined by dissident members of Real Madrid. The side began playing in blue and white, the then colours of Athletic Bilbao, but by 1911, both the Bilbao and Madrid teams were playing in their current colours of red and white stripes. Some believe the change came about because red and white striped tops were the cheapest to make, as the same combination was used to make bed mattresses and the unused cloth was easily converted into football shirts. This contributed to the creation of the nickname, "Los Colchoneros".
However, another explanation is that both Athletic Bilbao and Athletic Madrid used to buy Blackburn Rovers' blue and white kits in England. In late 1909, Juanito Elorduy, a former player and member of the board of Athletic Madrid, went to England to buy kits for both teams but failed to find Blackburn kits to purchase; he instead bought the red and white shirts of Southampton (the club from the port city which was his embarkation point back to Spain). Athletic Madrid adopted the red and white shirt, leading to them being known as "Los Rojiblancos", but opted to keep their existing blue shorts whereas the Bilbao team switched to new black shorts. Athletic Bilbao won the 1911 Copa del Rey Final using several 'borrowed' players from Athletic Madrid, including who scored one of their goals.

title: Athletic Bilbao cantera

text: Notable graduates who passed through the youth system on their way to establishing themselves with the Athletic senior side and/or other clubs (since the opening of Lezama in 1971) include:

title: AS Athletic Dărmănești

text: AS Athletic Dărmăneşti was a football club from Dărmănești, România who was acting in Liga IV. The club was in a partnership with Athletic Bilbao, but in 2010, Athletic Bilbao withdrew and Athletic Dărmăneşti was dissolved.

title: Tarsicio Aguado

text: On 12 July 2016, after being released by the Aragonese side, he signed a two-year deal with Athletic Bilbao. After two seasons as a regular with the reserves, he was released by Athletic Bilbao when his contract expired in July 2018.

title: 1921 Copa del Rey

text: The competition started on April 9, 1921, and concluded on May 8, 1921, with the Final, held at the San Mamés in Bilbao, in which Athletic Bilbao lifted the trophy for the 8th time ever with a 4–1 victory over Athletic Madrid.FC Barcelona withdrew in protest of the decision of Spanish Federation of moving the site of final from Seville to Bilbao. Athletic Madrid, his opponent, qualified for the semifinals.

title: Athletic Bilbao

text: Athletic began playing in an improvised white kit, but in the 1902–03 season, the club's first official strip became half-blue, half-white shirts similar to those worn by Blackburn Rovers,[26] which were donated by Juan Moser. Later, a young student from Bilbao named Juan Elorduy, who was spending Christmas 1909 in London, was charged by the club to buy 25 new shirts, but was unable to find enough. Waiting for the ship back to Bilbao and empty handed, Elorduy realised that the colours of the local team Southampton[27] matched the colours of the City of Bilbao, and bought 50 shirts to take with him. Upon arriving in Bilbao, the club's directors decided almost immediately to change the team's strip to the new colours, and since 1910, Athletic Club have played in red and white stripes. Of the 50 shirts bought by Elorduy, half were then sent to Atlético Madrid, where Elorduy was a committee member and a former player; it had originally begun as a youth branch of Athletic Bilbao.[28][29][30][31][32] Before the switch from blue and white to red and white, only one other team wore red and white, Sporting de Gijón, since 1905.

title: 1989–90 Segunda División

text: "Bilbao Athletic was ineligible for promotion for being reserve team of Athletic de Bilbao."

title: Juan Bilbao Mintegi

text: Born in Bilbao, Juanín played for Athletic Bilbao.

title: Athletic Bilbao B

text:
Bilbao Athletic dropped back down to the third level in 1996, but the main squad continued to be nurtured with several players who had spells with the reserves.
After 19 seasons in the Segunda División B, Bilbao Athletic returned to the second tier after defeating Cádiz CF, 3–1 on aggregate, in the promotion playoffs. However in their campaign in the Segunda they were reliant on the same group, a core squad of 20-year-olds who had never played at such a high level before, and despite battling performances in most of their games, a pattern of narrow defeats led to the team finishing bottom and being relegated back down at the first attempt. Somewhat ironically, the promoted teams that season were CD Leganés whose squad included three players on loan from Athletic who would have been eligible to play for Bilbao Athletic that season, as well as the parent club's local rivals Alavés and Osasuna.

title: Endika Guarrotxena

text: Born in Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country, Endika was a graduate of Athletic Bilbao's youth system. He made his senior debut with the reserve team, Bilbao Athletic, in the regionalised third tier during 1979–80. Midway through his second campaign, he made his league debut for the Athletic senior team on 30 November 1980, a 4–1 defeat away to Real Sociedad, scoring a late consolation goal for his side.

title: History of Athletic Bilbao

text: Athletic Bilbao is a Spanish football club from Bilbao, Biscay in the Basque Country.

title: Athletic Bilbao

text: Athletic Club, also commonly known as Athletic Bilbao (Basque: Bilboko Athletic Kluba / Spanish: Athletic de Bilbao), is a professional football club, based in Bilbao, in the Basque Country (Spain).

title: Aritz Solabarrieta

text: Due to a combination of Solabarrieta's good work with the youths and a disappointing campaign for the CD Basconia farm team coached by Ander Alaña, the two men swapped roles within the club's structure for the 2018–19 campaign. However, he was soon promoted again when Gaizka Garitano, coach of the Athletic reserve side Bilbao Athletic, was selected to take the helm of the senior team in December 2018, in turn leaving a vacancy at Bilbao Athletic which Solabarrieta was nominated to fill.

title: Athletic Bilbao B

text: The name was revived in 1964, when Athletic Bilbao decided to establish a reserve team with Agustín Gaínza as coach. The new "Bilbao Athletic" initially played in local regional leagues before winning promotion to Tercera División in 1966, under Rafa Iriondo; in 1969 they first reached Segunda División.

title: Athletic Bilbao signing policy

text: Back in 1911, a dispute occurred between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao regarding the latter fielding ineligible English players in the 1911 Copa del Rey; they had also employed the services of several (non-Basque) players from Atlético Madrid which was then a branch of the Bilbao club.67 This led to the Royal Spanish Football Federation introducing a rule for the next year's competition that all players must be Spanish citizens. As a large proportion of the players in that early era were Basque, relying on locals was no impediment to Athletic and they chose to maintain that approach even when the regulations were relaxed some years later.

title: List of Athletic Bilbao players

text: Athletic Bilbao is an association football club based in Bilbao, in Biscay in the Basque Country of Spain. The club was a founder member of the Spanish league, better known as La Liga, in 1928, and has won the league championship eight times. As of 2012, Athletic has played for 82 years in the "Primera División", the top tier of Spanish football, and is one of only three clubs, the others being Real Madrid and Barcelona, never to have been relegated from La Liga.

title: Unai Bilbao

text: In May 2018, Athletic Bilbao confirmed that Bilbao would leave the club when his contract expired in July; despite having been captain of the reserves and accumulated the most playing minutes among the squad in the preceding season, he was too old to continue with that team and there was no place in the senior squad, with contemporaries Yeray Álvarez and Unai Núñez already promoted ahead of him.

title: Athletic Bilbao B

text: The "Bilbao Athletic" name was first used in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War, when both La Liga and the Copa del Rey were suspended; several of top Athletic players subsequently joined the "Euskadi XI". This team was put together at the suggestion of José Antonio Aguirre, the president of the Basque Country, himself a former Athletic Bilbao footballer.

title: Athletic Bilbao

text: The first version of the actual shield is from 1922, it still was a really simple version that was changing of form with the years until having three different versions. Finally, in 1941 the first version of the current shield was created, but the name "Atlético Bilbao" was used when Generalissimo Francisco Franco outlawed all non-Spanish names during his fascist reign. In 1970, the club added colors to the shield and recovered the original English "Athletic Club" name. In 2008, the shape of the shield was slightly altered and a new "Athletic Club" typeface was introduced.

title: History of Athletic Bilbao

text: Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes had made the opposite journey and went to Britain to complete their studies in civil engineering and commerce. While in the United Kingdom, these students developed an interest in football and on their return to Bilbao they began to arrange games with British workers. In 1898, students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois founded the "Athletic Club", using the English spelling. In 1901, a meeting was held in the Café García, which established more formal rules and regulations. In 1902, the two Bilbao clubs formed a combined team, known as "Bizcaya", in the first Copa del Rey. They returned with the trophy after defeating Barcelona in the final. This would lead to the eventual merger of the two clubs as "Athletic Club" in 1903. In the same year, Basque students also formed "Athletic Club Madrid"; this club later evolved into Atlético Madrid. The club's foundation date is a subject of debate among football historians. The club itself declares 1898, but others claim 1901 or 1903 as the true founding year.

title: Royal Spanish Athletics Federation

text: If his first attempt to organize Interfédérale can be made back to 1917, when the first championships were held in Spain, it was not until March 27, 1920 that meet in Bilbao a meeting with Spanish Athletics Federation for to create a "Federación Atlética Española": an interim board was established, chaired by Mr. Laffitte.

title: Athletic Bilbao

text: Bilbao Athletic – B team in Segunda División B CD Basconia – affiliate team for under-20 players in Tercera División Athletic Bilbao cantera – youth system up to 19 years, in leagues including División de Honor Juvenil Athletic Bilbao (women) – women's team in the Primera División Femenino List of Athletic Bilbao records and statistics One Club Man Award – annual award for retired players organised by the club Politics and sports

title: List of Athletic Bilbao Femenino seasons

text: This is a list of seasons played by Athletic Bilbao Femenino, Athletic Bilbao's women's section, in Spanish and European football, from its foundation in 2000 as Leioa EFT to the latest completed season. The team first competed as part of Athletic Bilbao in the 2002–03 season.

title: José María Noriega

text: Born in Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country, Noriega was a graduate of Athletic Bilbao's youth system, having supported the club as a child. He made his senior debut with the reserve team, Bilbao Athletic, in the regionalised third tier during 1977–78. Towards the end of his third season featuring regularly for the reserves, he made his debut for the Athletic senior team on 16 March 1980, a 1–0 win away to Atlético Madrid in La Liga.

title: Reserve team

text: In 1983–84 Castilla CF and Bilbao Athletic, the reserve teams of Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao respectively, finished as winners and runners-up of the Segunda División. Castilla, Bilbao Athletic and Atlético Madrid B finished third in 1987–88, 1989–90 and 1998–99 respectively. In normal circumstances, these teams would have all been promoted except for the fact that their senior team was already in the Primera División.

title: Athletic Bilbao

text: Athletic's shield has incorporated the escutcheons of Bilbao and Biscay. From the shield of Bilbao, it takes the bridge and the church of San Anton, and the wolves from the powerful Haro family, who were lords of Biscay and founders of Bilbao in 1300. From the shield of Biscay it takes Guernica's tree and the cross of San Andrés. Its first documentary record dates from 1922.

title: Athletic Bilbao B

text: Bilbao Athletic, officially named Athletic Club "B", is the reserve team of Athletic Bilbao, a football club based in Bilbao, in the autonomous community of Basque Country. The team will play in the Segunda División B in the 2018–19 season. Founded in 1964, the team holds home matches at the small stadium attached to the club's training facility at Lezama, or occasionally at San Mamés Stadium, with its 53,500-seat capacity, for important fixtures.

title: Athletic Bilbao signing policy

text: Due to a relatively low immigrant population in the region, the policy also had the consequence of Athletic Bilbao being the last club in La Liga to have never fielded a black player. That was ended in 2011 when Jonas Ramalho, whose father is Angolan, made his debut. In 2015 Iñaki Williams (born in Bilbao to Liberian immigrant parents) became Athletic's first black goalscorer. Prior to Ramalho, in 2000 the first African-born player in the club's youth system was Blanchard Moussayou whose promising career was curtailed by injury; some years later, he stated his belief that it was 'twice as hard' for a black player to make an impact at the club.


query: Do birds use magnetoreception?

title: Magnetoreception

text: Magnetoreception (also magnetoception) is a sense which allows an organism to detect a magnetic field to perceive direction, altitude or location. This sensory modality is used by a range of animals for orientation and navigation,[1] and as a method for animals to develop regional maps. For the purpose of navigation, magnetoreception deals with the detection of the Earth's magnetic field.

title: Magnetoreception

text: Magnetobiology Quantum biology §Magnetoreception Salmon run

title: Magnetoreception

text: The mollusk Tochuina tetraquetra (formerly Tritonia diomedea or Tritonia gigantea) has been studied for clues as to the neural mechanism behind magnetoreception in a species. Some of the earliest work with Tochuina showed that prior to a full moon Tochuina would orient their bodies between magnetic north and east.[25] A Y-maze was established with a right turn equal to geomagnetic south and a left turn equal to geomagnetic east. Within this geomagnetic field 80% of Tochuina made a turn to the left or magnetic east. However, when a reversed magnetic field was applied that rotated magnetic north 180° there was no significant preference for either turn, which now corresponded with magnetic north and magnetic west. These results, though interesting, do not conclusively establish that Tochuina uses magnetic fields in magnetoreception. These experiments do not include a control for the activation of the Rubens’ coil in the reversed magnetic field experiments. Therefore, it is possible that heat or noise generated by the coil was responsible for the loss of choice preference. Further work with Tochuina was unable to identify any neurons that showed rapid changes in firing as a result of magnetic fields.[26][27] However, pedal 5 neurons, two bisymmetric neurons located within the Tochuina pedal ganglion, exhibited gradual changes in firing over time following 30 minutes of magnetic stimulation provided by a Rubens’ coil. Further studies showed that pedal 7 neurons in the pedal ganglion were inhibited when exposed to magnetic fields over the course of 30 minutes. The function of both pedal 5 neurons and pedal 7 neurons is currently unknown.

title: Klaus Schulten

text: Schulten also began to explore the possibility that fast triplets could explain compass sensors in biological species such as migrating birds. That the European robin used some form of magnetoreception was demonstrated by Wolfgang Wiltschko and Fritz Merkel in 1965, and further studied by Wolfgang and Roswitha Wiltschko. Schulten proposed that quantum entanglement of a radical-pair system could underlie a biochemical compass. Schulten and others have since extended this early work, developing a model of the possible excitation of cryptochrome proteins in photoreceptors within the retina of the eye.

title: Magnetoreception

text: Domestic hens have iron mineral deposits in the dendrites in the upper beak and are capable of magnetoreception.[57][58] Because hens use directional information from the magnetic field of the Earth to orient in relatively small areas, this raises the possibility that beak-trimming (removal of part of the beak, to reduce injurious pecking, frequently performed on egg-laying hens) impairs the ability of hens to orient in extensive systems, or to move in and out of buildings in free-range systems.[59]

title: Magnetoreception

text: Despite more than 50 years of research, a sensory receptor in animals has yet to be identified for magnetoreception.[70] While research is ongoing, it is possible that the entire receptor system could fit in a one-milimeter cube and have a magnetic content of less than one ppm. As such, even discerning the parts of the brain where the information is processed presents a challenge.[71]

title: Magnetoreception

text: Bats may also use magnetic fields to orient themselves. While it is known that bats use echolocation to navigate over short distances, it is unclear how they navigate over longer distances.[63] When Eptesicus fuscus are taken from their home roosts and exposed to magnetic fields 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise of magnetic north, they are disoriented and set off for their homes in the wrong direction. Therefore, it seems that Eptesicus fuscus is capable of magnetoreception. However, the exact use of magnetic fields by Eptesicus fuscus is unclear as the magnetic field could be used either as a map, a compass, or a compass calibrator. Recent research with another bat species, Myotis myotis, supports the hypothesis that bats use magnetic fields as a compass calibrator and their primary compass is the sun.[64]

title: Magnetoreception

text: Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) may use magnetoreception when predating small rodents. When foxes perform their high-jumps onto small prey like mice and voles, they tend to jump in a north-eastern compass direction. In addition, successful attacks are "tightly clustered" to the north.[65] One study has found that when domestic dogs are off the leash and the Earth's magnetic field is calm, they prefer to urinate and defecate with their bodies aligned on a north-south axis.[66]

title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Scientists are still studying whether or not animals are affected by this, some suggesting this is why whales beach themselves. Some have stated the possibility that other migrating animals including birds and honey bees, might be affected since they also use magnetoreception to navigate, and geomagnetic storms alter the Earth's magnetic fields temporarily.Links related to power grids:

title: Magnetoreception

text: Magnetoreception is present in bacteria, arthropods, molluscs and members of all major taxonomic groups of vertebrates.[1] Humans are not thought to have a magnetic sense, but there is a protein (a cryptochrome) in the eye which could serve this function.[2]

title: Magnetoreception

text: The majority of study on magnetoreception in reptiles involves turtles. Some of the earliest support for magnetoreception in turtles was found in Terrapene carolina, a species of box turtle. After successfully teaching a group of these box turtles to swim to either the east or west end of an experimental tank, the introduction of a strong magnet into the tank was enough to disrupt the learned routes.[42] As such, the learning of oriented paths seems to rely on some internal magnetic compass possessed by box turtles. Subsequent discovery of magnetite in the dura mater of Sea Turtle hatchlings supported this conclusion, as magnetite provides a means by which magnetic fields may be perceived.[43]

title: Sense

text: Magnetoception (or magnetoreception) is the ability to detect the direction one is facing based on the Earth's magnetic field. Directional awareness is most commonly observed in birds, which rely on their magnetic sense to navigate during migration. It has also been observed in insects such as bees. Cattle make use of magnetoception to align themselves in a north-south direction. Magnetotactic bacteria build miniature magnets inside themselves and use them to determine their orientation relative to the Earth's magnetic field.

title: Magnetoreception

text: Magnetoreception has also been reported in the European eel by at least one study.[35]

title: Magnetoreception

text: The most promising leads — cryptochromes, iron-based systems, electromagnetic induction — each have their own pros and cons. Cryptochromes have been observed in various organisms including birds and humans, but does not answer the question of night-time navigation. Iron-based systems have also been observed in birds, and if proven, could form a magnetoreceptive basis for many species including turtles. Electromagnetic induction has not been observed nor tested in non-aquatic animals. Additionally, it remains likely that two or more complementary mechanisms play a role in magnetic field detection in animals. Of course, this potential dual mechanism theory raises the question, to what degree is each method responsible for the stimulus, and how do they produce a signal in response to the low magnetic field of the Earth?[72]

title: Magnetoreception

text: Magnetoreception is well documented in honey bees, ants and termites.[32] In ants and bees, this is used to orient and navigate in areas around their nests and within their migratory paths.[33] For example, through the use of magnetoreception, the Brazilian stingless bee Schwarziana quadripunctata is able to distinguish differences in altitude, location, and directionality using the thousands of hair-like particles on its antennae.[34]

title: Magnetoreception

text: The second proposed model for magnetoreception relies on clusters composed of iron, a natural mineral with strong magnetism. The idea is favorable as it builds up on the magnetoreceptive abilities of magnetotactic bacteria. These iron clusters have been observed mainly in homing pigeons in the upper beak,[13] but also in other taxa[14].

title: Bat

text: Microbats make use of magnetoreception, in that they have a high sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic field, as birds do. Microbats use a polarity-based compass, meaning that they differentiate north from south, unlike birds, which use the strength of the magnetic field to differentiate latitudes, which may be used in long-distance travel. The mechanism is unknown but may involve magnetite particles.

title: Quantum biology

text: Magnetoreception refers to the ability of animals to navigate using the inclination of the magnetic field of the earth. A possible explanation for magnetoreception is the entangled radical pair mechanism. The radical-pair mechanism is well-established in spin chemistry, and was speculated to apply to magnetoreception in 1978 by Schulten et al.. The ratio between singlet and triplet pairs is changed by the interaction of entangled electron pairs with the magnetic field of the earth. In 2000, cryptochrome was proposed as the "magnetic molecule" that could harbor magnetically sensitive radical-pairs. Cryptochrome, a flavoprotein found in the eyes of European robins and other animal species, is the only protein known to form photoinduced radical-pairs in animals. When it interacts with light particles, cryptochrome goes through a redox reaction, which yields radical pairs both during the photo-reduction and the oxidation. The function of cryptochrome is diverse across species, however, the photoinduction of radical-pairs occurs by exposure to blue light, which excites an electron in a chromophore. Magnetoreception is also possible in the dark, so the mechanism must rely more on the radical pairs generated during light-independent oxidation.

title: European robin

text: The avian magnetic compass of the robin has been extensively researched and uses vision-based magnetoreception, in which the robin's ability to sense the magnetic field of the earth for navigation is affected by the light entering the bird's eye. The physical mechanism of the robin's magnetic sense is not fully understood, but may involve quantum entanglement of electron spins.

title: Magnetoreception

text: Homing pigeons can use magnetic fields as part of their complex navigation system.[45] William Keeton showed that time-shifted homing pigeons are unable to orient themselves correctly on a clear, sunny day which is attributed to time-shifted pigeons being unable to compensate accurately for the movement of the sun during the day. Conversely, time-shifted pigeons released on overcast days navigate correctly. This led to the hypothesis that under particular conditions, homing pigeons rely on magnetic fields to orient themselves. Further experiments with magnets attached to the backs of homing pigeons demonstrated that disruption of the bird's ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field leads to a loss of proper orientation behavior under overcast conditions.[46] There have been two mechanisms implicated in homing pigeon magnetoreception: the visually mediated free-radical pair mechanism and a magnetite based directional compass or inclination compass.[47] More recent behavioral tests have shown that pigeons are able to detect magnetic anomalies of 186 microtesla (1.86 Gauss).[48]

title: Magnetite

text: Several species of birds are known to incorporate magnetite crystals in the upper beak for magnetoreception, which (in conjunction with cryptochromes in the retina) gives them the ability to sense the direction, polarity, and magnitude of the ambient magnetic field.

title: Magnetoreception

text: For animals the mechanism for magnetoreception is unknown, but there exist two main hypotheses to explain the phenomenon.[5] According to one model, magnetoreception is possible via the radical pair mechanism.[6] The radical-pair mechanism is well-established in spin chemistry,[7][8][9] and was speculated to apply to magnetoreception in 1978 by Schulten et al.. In 2000, cryptochrome was proposed as the "magnetic molecule", so to speak, that could harbor magnetically sensitive radical-pairs. Cryptochrome, a flavoprotein found in the eyes of European robins and other animal species, is the only protein known to form photoinduced radical-pairs in animals.[6] The function of cryptochrome is diverse across species, however, the photoinduction of radical-pairs occurs by exposure to blue light, which excites an electron in a chromophore.[10] The Earth's magnetic field is only 0.5 gauss and so it is difficult to conceive of a mechanism, other than phase shift, by which such a field could lead to any chemical changes other than those affecting the weak magnetic fields between radical pairs.[11] Cryptochromes are therefore thought to be essential for the light-dependent ability of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to sense magnetic fields.[12]

title: European eel

text: Magnetoreception has also been reported in the European eel by at least one study, and may be used for navigation.

title: Homing pigeon

text: The homing pigeon is a variety of domestic pigeon ("Columba livia domestica") derived from the rock pigeon, selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances. The wild rock pigeon has an innate homing ability, meaning that it will generally return to its nest, (it is believed) using magnetoreception. This made it relatively easy to breed from the birds that repeatedly found their way home over long distances. Flights as long as have been recorded by birds in competitive pigeon racing. Their average flying speed over moderate distances is around and speeds of up to have been observed in top racers for short distances.

title: Magnetoreception

text: In a choice test birds were trained to jump onto a platform on one end of a tunnel if there was no magnetic field present and to jump onto a platform on the other end of the tunnel if a magnetic field was present. In this test, birds were rewarded with a food prize and punished with a time penalty. Homing pigeons were able to make the correct choice 55%-65% of the time which is higher than what would be expected if the pigeons were simply guessing.

title: Magnetobiology

text:
An example of a magnetobiological effect is the magnetic navigation by migrant animals by means of magnetoreception.
Many animal orders, such as certain birds, marine turtles, reptiles, amphibians and salmonoid fishes are able to detect small variations of the geomagnetic field and its magnetic inclination to find their seasonal habitats. They are said to use an "inclination compass". Certain crustaceans, spiny lobsters, bony fish, insects and mammals have been found to use a "polarity compass", whereas in snails and cartilageous fish the type of compass is as yet unknown. Little is known about other vertebrates and arthropods. Their perception can be on the order of tens of nanoteslas.

title: Magnetoreception

text: Work with mice, mole-rats and bats has shown that some mammals are capable of magnetoreception. When woodmice are removed from their home area and deprived of visual and olfactory cues, they orient themselves towards their homes until an inverted magnetic field is applied to their cage.[60] However, when the same mice are allowed access to visual cues, they are able to orient themselves towards home despite the presence of inverted magnetic fields. This indicates that when woodmice are displaced, they use magnetic fields to orient themselves if there are no other cues available. However, early studies of these subjects were criticized because of the difficulty of completely removing sensory cues, and in some because the tests were performed out of the natural environment. In others, the results of these experiments do not conclusively show a response to magnetic fields when deprived of other cues, because the magnetic field was artificially changed before the test rather than during it.[61]

title: Magnetoreception

text: Then there is the distinction of magnetic usage. Some species may only be able to sense a magnetic compass to find north and south, while others may only be able to discern between the equator and the pole. Although the ability to sense direction is important in migratory navigation, many animals also have the ability to sense small fluctuations in earth’s magnetic field to compute coordinate maps with a resolution of a few kilometers or better.[73] For a magnetic map, the receptor system would have to be able to discern tiny differences in the surrounding magnetic field to develop a sufficiently detailed magnetic map. This is not out of the question, as many animals have the ability to sense small fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field. This is not out of the question biologically, but physically has yet to be explained. For example, birds such as the homing pigeon are believed to use the magnetite in their beaks to detect magnetic signposts and thus, the magnetic sense they gain from this pathway is a possible map.[72] Yet, it has also been suggested that homing pigeons and other birds use the visually mediated cryptochrome receptor as a compass.[72]

title: Quantum Zeno effect

text: The quantum Zeno effect is used in commercial atomic magnetometers and naturally by birds' magnetic compass sensory mechanism (magnetoreception).

title: Steven M. Reppert

text:
In 2008, Reppert discovered the necessity of "Cry" for light-dependent magnetoreception responses in "Drosophila". He also showed that magnetoreception requires UVA/blue light, the spectrum corresponding with the action spectrum of "Drosophila" CRY.
These data were the first to genetically implicate CRY as a component of the input pathway or the chemical-based pathway of magnetoreception. Applying these findings to his work with the monarch, Reppert has shown that both monarch CRY1 and CRY2 proteins, when transgenically expressed in CRY-deficient flies, successfully restore magnetoreception function. These results propose the presence of a CRY-mediated magnetosensitivity system in monarchs that may act in concordance with the sun compass to aid navigation. In 2011, Reppert also discovered that human CRY2 can substitute as a functional magnetoreceptor in CRY-deficient flies, a discovery that warrants additional research into magnetosensitivity in humans.


query: When was the first opera written?

title: Opera

text: Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata de' Bardi". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne, however, is lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day. The honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed, however, goes to Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, composed for the court of Mantua in 1607.[7] The Mantua court of the Gonzagas, employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of the first actual "opera singers"; Madama Europa.[8]

title: Savoy opera

text: During the years when the Gilbert and Sullivan (“G&S”) operas were being written, Richard D'Oyly Carte produced operas by other composer–librettist teams, either as curtain raisers to the G&S pieces, or to fill the theatre when no G&S piece was available. To their contemporaries, the term "Savoy Opera" referred to any opera that appeared at that theatre, regardless of who wrote it.

title: The Witches (opera)

text: The Witches is a children's opera, composed by Marcus Paus and with a libretto by Ole Paus, and based on the novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was written for Gloppen Musikkfest, and was first performed in 2008 with Tora Augestad as the eponymous Grand High Witch. The opera was written especially with Augestad in mind.

title: Opera in Canada

text:
As an old form of art in a new country, opera came to Canada relatively late. Although the first composition can be traced back to the seventeenth century it was not until 150 years later that Canadian opera caught up. Canadian opera became especially fashionable on Canada's 1967 Centennial year. These celebrations set off an interest in operas among Canadian composers that was never seen before. This interest in opera, among composers and audience alike, is noticeable until today. However, most Canadian works in the realm of opera are not known internationally since many of them specifically concern Canadian themes and are small in scale.
Canadian operas are typically influenced by the history of the country. Many deal with First Nations and immigration themes or concern specific historical events and figures. Canada's diversity is thus very much reflected by the operatic works of its composers.
The first opera written on Canadian soil was Joseph Quesnel's "Colas et Colinette". Written in 1788 and first performed in 1790 in Montreal, it was again produced in Quebec in 1805. The comedic opera in three acts is written in a manner that clearly shows the composer's French heritage. The characters are “stock characters” that were often found in French comedies such as Molière's and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's. The similarities between the characters but also the plots may be due to the fact, that the plays as well as operas show the morals of French society at the time.

title: Carl Nielsen

text: Nielsen's two operas are very different in style. The four-act (Saul and David), written in 1902 to a libretto by Einar Christiansen, tells the Biblical story of Saul's jealousy of the young David while (Masquerade) is a comic opera in three acts written in 1906 to a Danish libretto by Vilhelm Andersen, based on the comedy by Ludvig Holberg. "Saul and David" received a negative press when it was premiered in November 1902 and did no better when it was revived in 1904. By contrast, in November 1906 "Masquerade" was a resounding success with an exceptional run of 25 performances over its first four months. Generally considered to be Denmark's national opera, in its home country it has enjoyed lasting success and popularity, attributable to its many strophic songs, its dances and its underlying "old Copenhagen" atmosphere.

title: Italian opera

text: In Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth a tradition of operatic production began in Warsaw in 1628, with a performance of "Galatea" (composer uncertain), the first Italian opera produced outside Italy. Shortly after this performance, the court produced Francesca Caccini's opera "La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d’Alcina", which she had written for Prince Władysław Vasa three years earlier when he was in Italy. Another first, this is the earliest surviving opera written by a woman. "Gli amori di Aci e Galatea" by Santi Orlandi was also performed in 1628. When Władysław was king (as Władysław IV) he oversaw the production of at least ten operas during the late 1630s and 1640s, making Warsaw a center of the art. The composers of these operas are not known: they may have been Poles working under Marco Scacchi in the royal chapel, or they may have been among the Italians imported by Władysław. A "dramma per musica" (as serious Italian opera was known at the time) entitled "Giuditta", based on the Biblical story of Judith, was performed in 1635. The composer was probably Virgilio Puccitelli.

title: Maiden of the North

text: Maiden of the North () is an opera by Oskar Merikanto. Composed in 1898, it was the first opera composed in the Finnish language; while other Finnish operas had been written previously, they had been composed in the Swedish language instead of the native Finnish. "Maiden" was written to a libretto by Antti Rytkönen. The opera was not premiered until 1908; at the first performances, in Wiborg, the title role was taken by Mally Burjam-Bergaas, while that of Väinämöinen was sung by Abraham Ojanperä.

title: When the Fern Blooms (opera)

text: "When the Fern Blooms" () is a folk-opera by Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych. It has three acts and was written in the mid 1970s. It was first performed on stage in 2011. The opera was also performed on on December 15, 2017 at the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet. The libretto of the opera was primarily inspired by the works of Nikolai Gogol, national traditions and folklore, folk ceremonies, and epic poems.

title: Stradella (Franck)

text: "Stradella", CFF 229, Op.033 is an 1841 opera by César Franck to a libretto by Émile Deschamps and Émilien Pacini. It is the first of Franck's four operas. Written when he was only 19, it was never orchestrated. Its first performance took place in the late 20th century.

title: Leyli and Majnun (opera)

text: It was written in 1907 and first performed on 12 January 1908 at the Taghiyev Theatre in Baku. The opera is considered the Muslim world's first opera.

title: William Henry Fry

text: Fry's operatic compositions include "Aurelia the Vestal", "Leonora" (based on the 1838 play "The Lady of Lyons"), and "Notre-Dame of Paris" (based on the 1831 novel by Victor Hugo). "Leonora" was a very successful production at its premiere in 1845 and second run the following year. "Leonora" is also significant as it was the first grand opera written by an American composer. The opera was written for Ann Childe Seguin who took the title role when it opened.

title: Joseph Parry

text: Parry's opera, "Blodwen", was first performed in Aberystwyth's Temperance Hall on 21 May 1878, although Parry did not publish it until 1888, while at Swansea. This was the first opera written by a Welsh composer and also the first opera to be performed in Welsh. The opera, with its libretto written by Richard Davies, is set during the time of the Welsh Revolt—the last attempt by the Welsh to preserve their independence.

title: Goce

text: Goce is an opera composed by Kiril Makedonski (1925–1984) in tribute to Gotse Delchev. The work was commissioned to be the very first opera performed by the Macedonian National Opera Company. It premiered on May 24, 1954 and it is the first opera to be written in the Macedonian language.

title: Alexander Mackenzie (composer)

text: Mackenzie's operas began in 1883 with "Colomba", first produced by the Carl Rosa Company. It was a success, but his second opera "The Troubadour" (1886) was not. Francis Hueffer's libretti for both operas were written in an antiquated style that attracted much criticism. Mackenzie's other operas were a one-act opera, "The Cricket on the Hearth", first performed in 1914, "The Eve of St John" (1924), and two almost-complete operas, "The Cornish Opera" and "Le luthier".

title: Salawat Yulayev (opera)

text: Salawat Yulayev is an opera in three acts by the Bashkir composer Zagir Ismagilov. The libretto was written by Bayezit Bikbay, based on stories from the life of the Bashkir national hero, Salawat Yulayev. It is the first national opera written in the Bashkir language and premiered in 1955 at the Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Ufa in its original four-act version.

title: Francesco Zoppis

text: Little is known of his artistic beginnings. The first mention of him is from 1739, when the travelling opera company of Pietro Mignotti performed his opera "Lucio Papirio ditattore" in Graz. In 1745 was Zoppis temporarily engaged as the "vice-kapellmeister" at the court of the kurfürst Clemens August in Bonn. In 1748 he came to Prague, where he joined the Locatelli ensemble. He began to cooperate with e. g. Ch. W. Gluck and G. M. Rutini. Zoppis composed his first Prague opera, "Vologeso", in 1753. A year later, in 1754, he introduced another opera - "Siroe, re di Persia". The music was written to the libretto of Pietro Metastasio. Zoppis left Prague together with Locatelli and moved to St. Petersburgh, where he conducted the local opera.

title: Poles

text: In addition, a tradition of operatic production began in Warsaw in 1628, with a performance of "Galatea" (composer uncertain), the first Italian opera produced outside Italy. Shortly after this performance, the court produced Francesca Caccini's opera "La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d’Alcina", which she had written for Prince Władysław three years earlier when he was in Italy. Another first, this is the earliest surviving opera written by a woman. When Władysław became king (as Władysław IV) he oversaw the production of at least ten operas during the late 1630s and 1640s, making Warsaw a center of the art. The composers of these operas are not known: they may have been Poles working under Marco Scacchi in the royal chapel, or they may have been among the Italians imported by Władysław.

title: Karola Obermueller

text: Obermueller's first opera, "Dunkelrot" ("Dark Red"), was written for the opera in Nürnberg after an original libretto by Gabriele Strassmann. The opera tells the tale of an African woman seeking asylum in Germany who gets lost in the German immigration system. Her second opera, "Helges Leben" ("Helge's Life"), was an adaptation of the eponymous play by Sibylle Berg, and was written with composer Mark Moebius. In 2009, the opera had its well-received premiere by the Theater Bielefeld, in cooperation with the and the .

title: Music of Poland

text: In addition, a tradition of operatic production began in Warsaw in 1628, with a performance of "Galatea" (composer uncertain), the first Italian opera produced outside Italy. Shortly after this performance, the court produced Francesca Caccini's opera "La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d’Alcina", which she had written for Prince Władysław three years earlier when he was in Italy. Another first, this is the earliest surviving opera written by a woman. When Władysław was king (as Władysław IV) he oversaw the production of at least ten operas during the late 1630s and 1640s, making Warsaw a center of the art. The composers of these operas are not known: they may have been Poles working under Marco Scacchi in the royal chapel, or they may have been among the Italians imported by Władysław.

title: Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (Sor)

text: The work is based on a melody from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute". The opera was first performed in Vienna, 1791, and in German, while the first performances in Italian took place in 1794, so Sor could have feasibly written the piece any time since then. However, it is more likely that he was inspired to write the piece when the first major production was premiered in England in May 1819, when Sor was in the area.

title: McTeague (opera)

text: McTeague is an American opera composed by William Bolcom with a libretto Arnold Weinstein and Robert Altman. The opera is based on a novel of the same name by Frank Norris (written in 1895, published in 1899) which also served as the source material for the Erich von Stroheim film "Greed" (1924). The piece was written on commission for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and first performed there on October 31, 1992.

title: Der vierjährige Posten

text: , 190, is a one-act singspiel by Franz Schubert to a libretto by Theodor Körner written for 's (1784–1814) opera of the same title that premiered in 1813 in Vienna's Theater an der Wien. Written in 1815 when Schubert was 18 years old, it was first performed on 23 September 1896, 67 years after Schubert's death, at the Dresden Court Opera.

title: La danza (Gluck)

text: The opera was written to celebrate the eighth birthday of Empress Maria Theresa's son Leopold and first performed at Laxenburg on 5 May 1755. "La danza" was used as the prologue to "Le grand Ballet des bergers" ("The Great Ballet of the Shepherds"), a ballet with music by Josef Starzer. Pietro Metastasio had originally written the opera's Italian-language libretto for the composer Giuseppe Bonno in 1744. He revised the text for Gluck, including two new arias. The opera may have been reprised on 30 May 1755 at Laxenburg. There is no record of any further performance until 1987, when it appeared at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

title: Il Postino (opera)

text:
"Il Postino" was the fifth and last of Daniel Catán's operas and the first one for which he had also written the libretto. His route to creating the work began when he first saw the 1994 film "Il Postino" and thought it would make a good opera. However, at the time he was in the midst of composing "Florencia en el Amazonas" and then received a commission from Houston Grand Opera for his fourth opera "" which premiered in 2004. After completing that work, he returned to the "Postino" project. In an interview shortly before the premiere Catán said:
It's rare that an idea I had 15 years ago resurfaces, then I take it on, because one changes so much in that time. But when I came back to this idea, in fact I was still interested in it, but for different reasons. Instead of identifying with the Mario character, with the young aspiring poet, in fact now I could see the story from the other point of view, which was of the older poet.

title: Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen

text: Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen ("Murderer, Hope of Women") is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith, written in 1919 on a German libretto by Oskar Kokoschka which he based on his play of 1907. The opera was the first in a triptych of expressionist one-act operas, the others being "Das Nusch-Nuschi", and "Sancta Susanna". They were the first operas written by Hindemith. The first two were premiered together in Stuttgart on 4 June 1921, all three were performed at the Frankfurt Opera in 1922.

title: Russian Enlightenment

text: Opera reached Russia in 1731, when Empress Anna invited the Italian opera troupe to show "Calandro" by Giovanni Alberto Ristori during the celebration of her coronation in Moscow. In 1735 another Italian opera troupe led by composer Francesco Araja was invited to work in St. Petersburg. Araja spent 25 years in Russia and wrote 14 operas for the Russian Court including "Tsefal i Prokris" (1755), the first opera written in Russian to the libretto by Alexander Sumarokov.

title: The Merchant of Venice (opera)

text: Tchaikowsky met the theatre director John O'Brien in 1968 and they agreed to attempt an opera on "The Merchant". O'Brien has noted "At first it seemed odd that [Tchaikowsky], as a Jew, would want to take Shylock on, particularly at a time when there was a feeling that Shakespeare was anti-Semitic, which is a nonsensical thing anyway." Most of the opera was written by 1978, and following discussions with the music critic Hans Keller, Tchaikowsky decided to submit it for consideration to English National Opera, then under the directorship of Lord Harewood. A playthrough of the first two acts was arranged in December 1981, with Harewood and the ENO artistic director David Pountney and conductor Mark Elder in attendance. But in March 1982 Tchaikowsky received a letter from Harewood turning the opera down. By this time Tchaikowsky was already seriously ill, and he died only three months later. His dying wish was that the opera be performed.

title: Opera in Azerbaijan

text:
In 1921, Hajibeyov became a member of a council for the development of Azerbaijani theaters and contributed to the improvement of stage arts of Azerbaijan. In 1925, Hajibeyov merged Russian and Azerbaijani opera troupes in a single troupe and created the permanent company of the Opera and Ballet Theater of Azerbaijan. In 1932, Hajibeyov wrote "Koroghlu" , which was first staged in 1937.
In 1935 Muslim Magomayev composed "Nargiz" (1935) and Reinhold Glière composed "Shahsanam". The success of these operas encouraged other composers to create operas. In the 1940s, operas such as "Khosrow and Shirin" by Niyazi, "Vatan" ("Motherland") by Jovdat Hajiyev and Gara Garayev, "Nizami" by Afrasiyab Badalbeyli and many other operas were written and staged. The opera "Sevil" written by Fikrat Amirov premiered in 1953 and a remake of this opera was staged in 1998.

title: La Loca (opera)

text: The opera was written in honor of Sills' 50th birthday. It was the first work written specifically for her and was her last new role, as she retired the following year. It was commissioned by two West Coast opera lovers, Cyril Magnin and Lawrence P. Deutsch, at the urging of then-San Diego Opera director Tito Capobianco. Capobianco directed the production and the designer was Mario Vanarelli.

title: Lo frate 'nnamorato

text: The opera, written when the composer was only 22, is his first attempt at comic opera. (It was followed in 1733 by his better-known short opera, "La serva padrona"). The first performance was on 27 September 1732, at the Teatro dei Fiorentini, Naples. A successful run was halted by a severe earthquake, which closed the theatres in Naples until the autumn of 1733. It was re-presented during the 1734 carnival season, in a version revised by the author.

title: Opera

text: In Latin America, opera started as a result of European colonisation. The first opera ever written in the Americas was La púrpura de la rosa, by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, although Partenope, by the Mexican Manuel de Zumaya, was the first opera written from a composer born in Latin America (music now lost). The first Brazilian opera for a libretto in Portuguese was A Noite de São João, by Elias Álvares Lobo. However, Antonio Carlos Gomes is generally regarded as the most outstanding Brazilian composer, having a relative success in Italy with its Brazilian-themed operas with Italian librettos, such as Il Guarany. Opera in Argentina developed in the 20th century after the inauguration of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires—with the opera Aurora, by Ettore Panizza, being heavily influenced by the Italian tradition, due to immigration. Other important composers from Argentina include Felipe Boero and Alberto Ginastera.