Wong Fei-Hung: The True Story

Wong Fei-Hung was born in 1847, and passed away in 1924. He was a martial arts master, teacher, healer, and revolutionary. He would protect and help those who were weak and defenseless. Wong Kay-Ying was his father, and he was a physician and great martial arts master also, and part of a group known as the "Ten Tigers of Kwantung," and he and his son lived in the city of Canton. Wong Kay-Ying's famous medical clinic was Po Chi Lam, and Wong Fei-Hung was there assisting his father.
He learned traditional Chinese medicine, and also learned many important values such as generosity and compassion. Wong Kay-Ying always treated a patient, even if he or she was a complete jerk or was poor. He would also secretly treat revolutionaries who were the resistance against the corrupt Ch'ing Dynasty. The Ch'ing Dynasty consisted of Manchu emperors, who had conquered China from there home in Manchuria. They were foreign invaders to the southern Chinese.
The southern Shaolin Temple in Fukien was a place where revolutionaries would go to train to fight against the Manchus. The temple was destroyed in 1734, but the few monks and students who escaped traveled throughout China to teach their skills. Some styles such as Wing Chun (Bruce Lee's original style) and Hung Gar Kung Fu (Wong Fei-Hung's style) emerged. The creator of Hung Gar was Hung Hei-Kwun (another martial arts master that was portrayed by Jet Li in New Legend of Shaolin). He was a Fukien tea merchant. Wong Fei-Hung's martial arts training began when he met with his father's teacher, Luk Ah Choi. Luk Ah Choi taught Wong Fei-Hung the basics of Hung Gar. After, Wong Kay-Ying took over his son's training. By his early 20's, Wong Fei-Hung had made a name for himself as a dedicated physician and a martial arts prodigy. In addition to becoming a master of hung gar, he created the tiger-crane form and added fighting combinations now known as the "nine special fists." Wong Fei-Hung was also skilled with many weapons, especially the long wooden staff and the southern tiger fork. One occasion where he utilised his skill with the staff was when he defeated a thirty-man gang on the docks of Canton. He also protected the weak and poor from both criminal gangs and government forces. However, his life was not all great joy and triumphs. Wong Fei-Hung's son, Wong Hawn-Sum, followed his father's foot steps by protecting the weak and poor of Canton. Unfortunately, he was killed in the 1890's after being gunned down by the drug gang Dai Fin Yee. After this tragedy, Wong Fei-Hung vowed never to teach his remaining 9 sons martial arts, unless they were targets themselves. Also, Wong Fei-Hung's first three wives died young, and after, decided to live the rest of his life alone. But in 1903, during an outdoor martial arts demonstration, he met a 16 year old girl named Mok Gwai Lan, and asked for her hand in marriage. She was also a skilled martial artist who taught all of the women's classes, and even taught some of the men's classes, which was rare since hardly any women mastered kung fu at the time. In 1924, Wong Fei-Hung died peacefully, a happy and humble man. Wong Fei-Hung is truly a hero of China. A hero is somebody noted for feats of courage. A hero does righteous things not for money, not for any other venal motivations except, for the benefit of everybody else.

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Grebeg Ngenep - Yogyakarta

Village of Ngenep is located on the south-east of Wonosari, more or less 15 kilometer. There is actually no Village of Ngenep since the village has been divided into six hamlets. They are as follows: Sembuku, Mojo, Pomahan, Kauman, Nogosari, and Karang Tengah. Mostly the villagers are farmers and depend on the farm. They believe that farm and the harvest is maintained through magical powers from traditional ceremony of Grebeg Ngenep.

Ceremony of Grebeg Ngenep has a relation with ceremony of Grebeg from Kraton Kartasura. The name of "grebeg" itself derives from palace terminology. Just the ceremony is held at Ngenep, therefore it is known as ceremony of Grebeg Ngenep. It begins from the legend of Ki Mentotruno who was able to oversome a flood from river Kedung Lumbu at Kraton Kartasura, and Ki Mentotruno, who then became Ki Mentokuasa, was permitted to perform grebeg ceremony at Ngenep.

This tradition is always performed every Friday (Jumat Wage) after Mulud (Javanese month) and has the center at the legend of Ki Mentokuasa. Basically the ceremony is a thankfulness performace from the farmers since they have a good harverst. This adoption of grebed of Kraton Kartasura is meant:
- relation of King and His people
- a legitimation of Ngenep as a village which has special relation with the King
- to worship their ancestor of Ki Mentokuasa

Grebeg Ngenep begins with fixing fences, cleansing the streets and the places that will be used for the ceremony, especially Masjid Al Mutaqim. On Thursday (Kamis Pon) at noon there is a memule wilujengan (communal praying) to ask for blessing from the ancestors, by slaughtering a goat. On the same day after memule, the villagers prepare seven offerings at sacred places "sing mbaureksa dusun dikaruhi ben dha ora ngganggu" just to make sure that the ceremony will not be disturbed.

Each hamlet prepares also "gunungan" for the morning at Jumat Wage. Gunungan is made without any particular shape, but following the needs of each hamlet. In 1960s, some gunungan was in the shape of Javanese house (joglo or limasan). Also some shapes of animals were made, such as tiger, cow, or in 1990s, there were shape of rats or walang kadung.

The procession begins at 14.30 WIB with a sign of bendhe warisan. Gunungan is taken from each hamlets with a convoy of soldiers (8-14 persons) from the ancestral of Ki Mentokuasa. Gunungan firstly is taken from hamlet of Karang Tengah, Sembuku, Pomahan, Nogosari, and then Mojo. From the last hamlet, the soldiers also bring weton pantu or pari kancingan which are placed on the top of gunungan as a symbol of pasok glondong pangarem-arem (loyalty to the King). This symbolization becomes the center of the participants' attention who want those symbol for their prosperity.

The offerings of Grebeg Ngenep are:
a. Sesaji Panjang Ilang, tumpeng with serving dish, takir of tobacco, sirih, gambir, beer and coins,
b. Sesaji loyang kayu (tenong), contains kembang menyan, tembakau, sisir, pengilon, rokok, suri, jambe, jagung goreng and jamur gajih,
c. Sesaji bakul nasi, contains gulai kambing, kendhi, 9 panjang ilang of goat head, 3 panjang ilang of tumpeng, 1 panjang ilang of jadah and chicken,

In the gunungan, there are some offerings of nasi wuduk ingkung. In Pasren, there are pisang ayu setangkep, raja lumut, tumpeng weton, tumpeng memule (14 or 7 pairs) made by the ancestral of Ki Mentokuasa (tumpeng lancip 7 jodo, tumpeng gilingan 7 jodo, ulam ayam 7 takir, tawon 1 takir, jangan kelor).

They bring the Gunungan to Masjid Al Mutaqim, Nogosari, with a bride and bridegroom with complete clothes. They also bring bende, song-song jene, baju gondil, udheng gilig, and a spear from Kraton Kartasura.

Kenduri becomes the main ceremony. Then the village take the food from kenduri. All of the gunungan are brought home to each hamlet. At night, there is usually a shadow puppet show with story of Hyang Sri Sadono, the source of rice, known as Dewi Sri, excluding the story of Brantayudha.

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Prambanan Temple

This temple is the biggest Hindu temple in Central Java and Yogyakarta that has a main temple looks like Gunungan (mount at leather puppet shadow play) as high as 47 meters. As Hindu temple, the main temple has three shrines, dedicated to the Hindu Trinity; Ciwa, Whisnu, and Brahma. Each of this shrines facing to a smaller shrines for their vehicles. The cow Nandi is the vehicle of Ciwa, the destroyer god, and eagle Garuda is the vehicle of Whisnu, the creator god, and the swan Angsa is the vehicle of Brahma, the guardian god.

Entering the main temple from the north, one will find a statue of a very beautiful princess, Roro Jonggrang. According to the legend, Roro Jonggrang was daughter of King Boko who was cursed into a statue. The legend says that a young powerful man named Bandung Bondowoso wants to marry Roro Jonggrang. Since she does not love him, Roro Jonggrang tries to avoid the marriage by asking for Bandung Bondowoso can build a thousand temples in one night. Having supernatural power, Bandung Bondowoso was almost successfully finishing the task. But Roro Jonggrang still tries to prevent the good work. She ask the maidens east of the village of the temples to burn the hay and pound the rice, so that cause the situation like dawn and time for sunrise. When the cook begin to crow, all the supernatural being flee because they think the dawn has come. Being unable to control his anger, Bandung Bondowoso curses Roro Jonggrang into a statue that now complete the temple.

Relief depicting the heavenly creatures were carved around the foot of the Civa temple symbolizing the cosmic system. Entering the temple from the south and walking around the sub base of the temple with the main shrine on your right (Pradaksina) one will see the whole relief of the Story of Ramayana. The story ends at the relief carved on the balustrade of Brahma temple. The story of Kresnadwipayana which tells the childhood of Prabu Kresna, can be seen on the balustrade of Whisnu temple.

HISTORY
A 47 meters high Hindu temple was built by Sanjaya Dynasty in the 9 th century. It consists of three courtyards. The main temple is located in the inner courtyard and surrounded by several small temples called "Perwara" temples. Some of these were contributed by local chieftains as a token of their acquiescence to the king.

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History of Wayang Kulit

Wayang is a generic term denoting traditional theatre in Indonesia. There is no evidence that wayang existed before Hinduism came to Southeast Asia sometime in the first century CE. However, there very well may have been indigenous storytelling traditions that had a profound impact on the development of the traditional puppet theatre. The first record of a wayang performance is from an inscription dated 930 CE which says "si Galigi mawayang," or "Sir Galigi played wayang". From that time till today it seems certain features of traditional puppet theatre have remained. Galigi was an itinerant performer who was requested to perform for a special royal occasion. At that event he performed a story about the hero Bima from the Mahabharata.

Hinduism arrived in Indonesia from India even before the Christian era, and was slowly adopted as the local belief system. Sanskrit became the literary and court language of Java and later of Bali. The Hindus changed the Wayang (as did the Muslims, later) to spread their religion, mostly by stories from the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. Later this mixture of religion and wayang play was praised as harmony between Hinduism and traditional Indonesian culture. On Java, the western part of Sumatra and some smaller islands traditionalists continued to play the old stories for some time, but the influence of Hinduism prevailed and the traditional stories either fell into oblivion or were integrated into the Hinduistic plays. The figures of the wayang are also present in the paintings of that time, for example, the roof murals of the courtroom in Klungkung, Bali. They are still present in traditional Balinese painting today. When Islam began spreading in Indonesia, the display of God or gods in human form was prohibited, and thus this style of painting and shadow play was suppressed. King Raden Patah of Demak, Java, wanted to see the wayang in its traditional form, but failed to obtain permission from the Muslim religious leaders. As an alternative, the religious leaders converted the wayang golek into wayang purwa made from leather, and displayed only the shadow instead of the figures itself.[citation needed] Instead of the forbidden figures only their shadow picture was displayed, the birth of the wayang kulit.[citation needed] The figures are painted, flat woodcarvings (a maximum of 5 to 15 mm thick -- barely half an inch) with movable arms. The head is solidly attached to the body. Wayang klitikcan be used to perform puppet plays either during the day or at night. This type of wayang is relatively rare. Wayang today is both the most ancient and most popular form of puppet theatre in the world. Hundreds of people will stay up all night long to watch the superstar performers, dalang, who command extravagant fees and are international celebrities. Some of the most famous dalang in recent history are Ki Nartosabdho, Ki Anom Suroto, Ki Asep Sunarya, Ki Sugino, and Ki Manteb Sudarsono.
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Tz'u-hsi or Cixi: The Dowager Empress of China

Tzu-Hsi (pronounced "Tsoo Shee"), or Cixi, was one of the most formidable women in modern history. She was famed for her beauty and charm. She was either a great friend or terrible enemy. She was power hungry, ruthless and profoundly skilled in court politics. She would rise from a middle class family to a dowager empress affecting Chinese life forever.

She was born on November 29, 1835. Her given name was Yehonala. She was born to parents of the middle ranks of Manchu society. By the time she turned 17, she was one of the concubines of the Emperor Hsien-Feng. "Tzu-Hsi", meaning kindly and virtuous, was her court name. When the emperor would chose to sleep with her, she would be escorted to his room by eunuchs and left naked at the foot of the bed. This was done in order to insure no weapons were brought into his room. The emperor had many wives and concubines, but only Tzu-Hsi gave him a son. Upon the birth of their son, she immediately moved up in the court and upon the death of her husband she was given the title of Empress of the Western Palace. Tzu-Hsi was now the dowager empress.

However, her relations with the Emperor were never that fulfilling. According to Wu, a noted Chinese historian, the relations between the two were never anything but strained. She resented all attempts on his part to exercise real power. Their fights were always a struggle for power between them. When the Emperor died in 1861, her son, Chih, became the Emperor. She was one of the eight regents named by the emperor to rule during Tung Chih's youth, since he was only 5 years old when he took the throne. The other seven regents could have removed her from power, but she had allies. With the support of Jung Lu and his banner men, revolutionary eunuchs, the empress seized control of the government.

However, she still could not rule openly; she had to rule through her son. When Chih turned 17, his mother's reign had come to an end. She selected a wife and four concubines for him, supposedly to keep him so busy that she could rule for him. After a few years, the emperor died of venereal disease in 1875 and Tzu-Hsi became ruler once again. However, the empress still was not totally free to rule, for her son's favorite concubine was pregnant and if she delivered a boy, the boy would be the new emperor and his mother dowager empress. Mysteriously, the concubine died before giving birth. Many historians conjecture that this was done at the request of Tzu-Hsi, while others simply believe that she was mentally unstable and took her own life.

The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 was a key turning point of her reign. The Boxer Rebellion was named after the secret society of the "Righteous and Harmonious Fists" who were poor Chinese who blamed Westerners and their imperialism for their poor standing of living. First organized in 1898, they may have been tacitly supported by Tzu-Hsi's government. Rising in rebellion in early 1900, the empress and her government both helped and hindered the revolt. The Boxers attacked Western missionaries and merchants, as well as the compound in Peking where foreigners lived, beginning a siege which lasted eight weeks. On August 14th the 19,000 troops of the allied armies of the Western imperialist Powers captured Peking and ended the siege. Tzu-Hsi decided to flee the city with the emperor. The Boxer Rebellion was over; at least 250 foreigners had been killed and China had to accept a humiliating peace settlement.

In 1901, she returned to the city with a whole new outlook. She was now in favor of modernizing China and making moral and social reforms. One of her major reforms was to outlaw slicing, a practice of killing people with thousands of small cuts. The empress even promised the people a constitution and representative government. However, this was too little too late.

In 1908, Tzu-Hsi suffered a stroke and, realizing she was dying, she began to think about who she wanted to succeed her. She chose her three year old nephew, P'u Yi. Upon her death she was buried in splendor, covered in diamonds. In 1928, revolutionaries dynamited her tomb and looted it while desecrating her body.

Tzu-Hsi's legacy is clearly an important one. Whether the people liked her or not does not take away the pivotal role she played in the history of China. During her life in politics, Tzu-Hsi was clever and masterful. Her narrow-mindedness and ultra-conservatism in government policy delayed what China needed to do to keep pace with the rest of the world in the late 1800's. By the time she realized, it was too late. Therefore, many historians believe that Tzu-Hsi's success in the politics of her country helped put an end to any realistic hope of a modernized imperial China.

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The Giant Redwoods

Have you ever seen a redwood? They are tall! They are also called Sequoias which is a common name for a group of big, majestic evergreen trees of the cypress family. They can grow up to 100 feet tall or more! The sequoias are so big, that they are even bigger than the whale! If you saw a picture of a full grown Sequoia with a person standing next to it, that person would only be a large dot! Even if you saw the person well enough to identify him, the Sequoia would be like a big, huge background and you wouldn't know that it was a tree! It would take about ten people to all hold hands around a Sequoia because the circumfrence is so big!

The Giant Sequoia is found on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada . A Sequoia is estimated to weigh as much as 2500 metric tons! If you wanted to know how old a tree was after it had been cut down, you could look at the stump, and count the number of rings it has. Once you figure that out, you'll know how old the tree is (was). Some trees have been 2300 years of age. However, some other trees have lived up to 4000 years!
The leaves on a Giant Sequoia are scale like and lie close to the branches. The bark is spongy in texture. The wood is light, and highly resistant to insects and fire.

At one time, the most popular Sequoia was the dawn redwood. Its height is just about 100 feet and its diameter is about 6 feet.
Do you see that picture next to this. That little red dot is actually a person standing next to the Giant Sequoia! Can you believe it?
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Rainbows

Rainbows are awesome. Have you ever looked at them right after it rains, or through the water outside? Well, I have and I think that they are interesting.

A rainbow is an arch of light showing the colors of the light spectrum. The colors are seen in order with red on the outside, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Rainbows are caused by drops of water that are falling through the air. They are usually seen in the sky opposite to the sun at the end of a shower. They can also be seen in the spray of waterfalls.

When the sunlight enters a raindrop it is bent by and reflected from the drop. When this happens the light appears as a spectrum of colors. But, the colors can only be seen when the angle of reflection between the sun, the water drop, and the observer's line of version is between 40 degrees and 42 degrees.

The rainbow appears high when the sun is low in the sky, the rainbow is lower, when the sun is higher. When the sun is up higher than 42 degrees above the horizon, a rainbow cannot be seen because the required angle passes over the head of the observer. Do you think that the rainbows in the pictures are pretty and neat? I hope so!
http://library.thinkquest.org/
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The Great Wall Of China

The great wall of China is a place of defense for the borders of the northern and northwestern parts of China. The wall runs along the east to the area surrounding Goadai, Gansu Province. On the west there is an inner wall running from the surrounding area of Beijing almost to Hadan.

The largest portion of the wall was erected by Shih Huang Ti. He was the first emperor of the Ch'in Dynasty. It was made for defense against raids by nomadic people.

Work on the wall started about 221 B.C, after Shih Huang Ti had united China. It was finished by about 204 B.C. Small sections of the wall might have already existed, but Shih Huang Ti is supposed to have had about 1900 km (about 1200 mi) of the wall erected during his rein. In later centuries, especially during the period of the Ming Dynasty (A.D 1368-1644), the Great Wall was repaired and extended. The fortification finally reached a length of about 2400 km (1500 mi). It follows the courses of rivers instead of bridging them. It conforms to the contours of the mountains and valleys in its way.

The wall is built of earth and stone. There is brick on the east side of the wall. It is from 4.6 to 9.1 m thick at the base and tapers to about 7.6 m.

There is no wonder why I chose The Great Wall Of China as my own wonder. Did you know that you can even see "The Wall" from outer space?

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7 Wonders of the World

Only one of the "Seven Wonders of the World" still exists: Egypt's Pyramids at Giza. The other ancient wonders are long gone, their glories all broken by the Earth and lost to time.

Now, Egyptian officials seem worried about losing their wonder, too. Not because the pyramids are in danger of crumbling--they've stood tall for 46 centuries--but because there's a move afoot to name the "New Seven Wonders" of the world, and the pyramids are only one of 21 finalists being put to a worldwide web vote.

Egypt views the entire idea as an affront to the pyramids. "They are the only one of the seven wonders that still exists," said Egypt's antiquities chief. "They don't need to be put to a vote." But there are some pretty wondrous wonders on the new list--like the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis, the Statue of Liberty, and Stonehenge.

We'll tell you how to register your own vote for the "New Seven Wonders" below. But first, we have to ask you, can you name the old seven wonders? Knowing them just might sway your vote for today's short list. Let's see, after the Pyramids of Giza come the . . .

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Bible readers know Nebuchadnezzar II as the king who, in 587 BC, destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and forced the Jews into exile in Babylonia. But ancient tourists knew him as the man behind Babylon's Hanging Gardens. Built around 600 BC, the gardens grew on the roof of a terraced structure within his palace walls, irrigated by pumps that drew water up from the Euphrates. Today, Babylon is a ruin near Baghdad, and no definitive trace of the gardens has ever been found.

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The Ephesians erected their great temple for Apollo's twin sister Artemis around 550 BC. They rebuilt it after 356 BC, when a terrorist bent on fame set it ablaze. Located in today's Turkey, across the Aegean Sea from Athens, the temple drew many Greeks bearing gifts. They marveled at its size--imagine a football field surrounded by marble--and at the art inside. Little remains of the temple today, just fragments at the site and in museums.

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

When Olympia, home of the Olympic Games in western Greece, beheld the Temple of Artemis, its citizens said, "We'll see your Artemis and raise you a statue of Zeus." By 435 BC, the famed Greek sculptor Phidias was pounding the last plates of gold and ivory into place on a 40-foot (12-meter) statue of Zeus, seated on a cedarwood throne. No one knows what became of the thunder god's likeness, but we have found the workshop Phidias used to make it.

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

South of Ephesus, at Halicarnassus, ruled Mausolus, a Persian satrap who admired the Greek way of life. So, when Mausolus died in 353 BC, his sister-widow-queen, Artemisia, built him the most opulent Greek tomb around. It was 135 feet (40 meters) tall, adorned on every side with sculpture, and capped with a pyramidal roof. An earthquake brought the tomb down in medieval times, and Mausolus's memory now survives mainly in the word mausoleum.

Colossus of Rhodes

On the Greek island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean Sea, workers made wonder out of war. An army had besieged the island's capital. But Rhodes resisted for a year, and the army left. So the Rhodians reforged the army's abandoned bronze and iron weapons and sold its siege equipment to make a colossus: a 110-foot (34-meter) statue of the sun god Helios. By 280 BC, it stood tall on a marble pedestal near the harbor--until an earthquake toppled it just 56 years later.

Lighthouse of Alexandria

In the Egyptian port of Alexandria, few would have been overawed by Rhodes's colossus. For in Alexandria's harbor, on a small island named Pharos, stood the original lighthouse. It was made around the same time as Rhodes's statue, but dwarfed it. It stood 384 feet (117 meters) high--some say higher. Fires burned at the top at night, and bronze mirrors reflected sunlight during the day. It stood until the 14th century, when earthquakes ruined it, too.

Pyramids of Giza

Of course, we've already mentioned Egypt's three Pyramids of Giza, the only ancient wonder still standing today. But they are in a class by themselves in practically every other way as well. The largest and oldest of the three, the Great Pyramid, was built for the pharaoh Khufu (called Cheops by the Greeks) in the 26th century BC. That makes it 2,000 years older than any other wonder on the list.

The Great Pyramid climbs more than 450 feet (138 meters) into the sky--high enough to make it the tallest structure on Earth for almost 4,000 years, until European cathedrals started reaching for heaven. It's made up of about 2.3 million massive blocks of stone, weighing perhaps 6 million tons all told. Some have described it as "the most colossal single building ever erected on the planet." Now that's a wonder for any list, old or new.

--Michael Himick

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The Highest Mountain

Mount Everest is one of the tallest mountains in the world. It is part of the Himalayan Mountains. They were formed in the last few million years. After the supercontinent of Laurasia broke up millions of years ago, India moved slowly north towards Asia and then crashed into it. The seabed between the two plates (the earth's crust is divided into large areas of land called plates) was crumbled and pushed up on the northern rim of India to form mountains. These two plates of the earth's crust are still moving, so the Himalayas are being pushed up higher.

The highest mountain on the planet, Mount Everest is growing two inches taller each year. Satellite technology says the mountain is currently 29,107 feet tall. First recognized as the highest peek in 1852, it got its western name ten years later in 1862. Mount Everest was named for Sir George Everest (1790-1866), a British surveyor. Surveyors don't agree on the height of Mount Everest. The British government in the 1800's thought the height was 29,002 feet. In 1954 the Indian government said it's 29,028 feet, but a widely used unofficial figure says it is 29,141 feet!
Mount Everest sits on the border between Nepal and Tibet.
People from the western hemisphere weren't allowed to climb Mount Everest until the early 1920's. The first known climb that made it to the top was made by a New Zealander named Edmund Hillary and a Napalese named Tenzing Norgay. They climbed the mountain in 1953. Since then Everest has been climbed by 400 people. Access is restricted by the Nepalese to prevent too much damage to the environment.
Mount Everest is 97 degrees below freezing, talk about cold!

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Starfish / Sea Star

Sea stars, also known as starfish, are echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea. The names "sea star" and "starfish" are sometimes differentiated,with "starfish" used in a broader sense to include the closely related brittle stars, which make up the class Ophiuroidea, as well as excluding sea stars which do not have five arms, such as the sun stars and cushion stars.

Sea stars exhibit a superficially radial symmetry. They typically have five "arms" which radiate from a central disk (pentaradial symmetry). However, the evolutionary ancestors of echinoderms are believed to have had bilateral symmetry. Sea stars do exhibit some superficial remnant of this body structure, evident in their larval pluteus forms.

Sea stars do not rely on a jointed, movable skeleton for support and locomotion (although they are protected by their skeleton), but instead possess a hydraulic water vascular system that aids in locomotion. The water vascular system has many projections called tube feet on the ventral face of the sea star's arms which function in locomotion and aid with feeding. Sea stars usually hunt for shelled animals such as oysters and clams. They have two stomachs. One stomach is used for digestion, and the other stomach can be extended outward to engulf and digest prey. This feature allows the sea star to hunt prey that is much larger than its mouth would otherwise allow. Sea stars are able to regenerate lost arms. A new sea star may be regenerated from a single arm attached to a portion of the central disk.

Diet

Most species are generalist predators, eating clams, oysters or any animal too slow to evade the attack (e.g. dying fish). Some species are detritivores, eating decomposed animal and plant material or organic films attached to substrate. Others may consume coral polyps (the best-known example for this is the infamous Acanthaster planci), sponges or even suspended particles and plankton (sea star from the Order Brisingida).The processes of feeding and capture may be aided by special parts; Pisaster brevispinus or short-spined pisaster from the West Coast of America may use a set of specialized tube feet to extend itself deep into the soft substrata to extract prey (usually clams). Grasping the shellfish, the sea star slowly pries open the shell by wearing out the adductor muscle and then inserts (also called evisceration) its stomach into an opening to devour the organism. Sea stars have also been known to attack animals such as marine snails. Protoreaster Nodotus, or horned sea stars, eat snails in an aquarium setting if the detritus in the tank is not sufficient to satisfy the sea star's hunger.

Reproduction

Sea stars are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction. Individual sea stars are male or female. Fertilization takes place externally, both male and female releasing their gametes into the environment. Resulting fertilized embryos form part of the zooplankton.

Sea stars are developmentally (embryologically) known as deuterostomes. Their embryo initially develops bilateral symmetry, indicating that sea stars probably share a common ancestor with the chordates, which includes the fish. Later development takes a very different path however as the developing star fish settles out of the zooplankton and develops the characteristic radial symmetry. Some species reproduce cooperatively, using environmental signals to coordinate the timing of gamete release; in other species, one to one pairing is the norm.

Sea stars commonly reproduce by free-spawning: releasing their gametes into the water where they hopefully are fertilized by gametes from the opposite sex. To increase their chances of fertilization, sea stars probably gather in groups when they are ready to spawn, use environmental signals to coordinate timing (day length to indicate the correct time of the year, dawn or dusk to indicate the correct time of day), and may use chemical signals to indicate their readiness to each other.

Fertilized eggs grow into bipinnaria and later into brachiolaria larvae, which either grow using a yolk or by catching and eating other plankton. In either case, they live as plankton, suspended in the water and swimming by using beating cilia. The larvae are bilaterally symmetric — unlike adults, they have a distinct left and right side. Eventually, they undergo a complete metamorphosis, settle to the bottom, and grow into adults.Some species of sea star brood their young: the males spawn gametes which fertilize eggs held by the females. The females may hold the eggs on their surface, in the pyloric stomach (as in Leptasterias tenera), or even attach them to the ground (as in Asterina gibbosa). Brooding is especially common in polar and deep-sea species, environments less favourable for larvae.

Male and female sea stars are not distinguishable from the outside; one needs to see the gonads or be lucky enough to catch them spawning. The gonads are located in each arm, and release gametes through gonoducts located on the central body between the arms.

Some species of sea star also reproduce asexually by fragmentation, often with part of an arm becoming detached and eventually developing into an independent individual sea stars. This has led to some notoriety. Sea stars can be pests to fishermen who make their living on the capture of clams and other mollusks at sea as sea stars prey on these. The fishermen would presumably kill the sea stars by chopping them up and disposing of them at sea, ultimately leading to their increased numbers until the issue was better understood. A sea-star arm can only regenerate into a whole new organism if some of the central ring of the sea star is part of the chopped off arm.

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Jellyfish

Jellyfish (also known as jellies or sea jellies) are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. They have several different morphologies that represent several different cnidarian classes including the Scyphozoa (about 200 species), Staurozoa (about 50 species), Cubozoa (about 20 species), and Hydrozoa (about 1000-1500 species that make jellyfish and many more that do not). The jellyfish in these groups are also called, respectively, scyphomedusae, stauromedusae, cubomedusae, and hydromedusae; "medusa" (plural "medusae") is another word for jellyfish. Jellyfish are found in every ocean, from the surface to the deep sea. Some hydrozoan jellyfish, or hydromedusae, are also found in fresh water. Most of the information about jellyfish that follows in this article is about scyphozoan jellyfish, or scyphomedusae. These are the big, often colorful, jellyfish that are common in coastal zones worldwide.

In its broadest sense, the term jellyfish is sometimes used also to refer to members of the phylum Ctenophora. Although not closely related to cnidarian jellyfish, ctenophores are also free-swimming planktonic carnivores, are also generally transparent or translucent, and occur in shallow to deep portions of all the world's oceans. Ctenophores move using eight rows of fused cilia that beat in metachronal waves that diffract light, so that they sparkle with all of the colors of the rainbow. The rest of this article deals only with jellyfish in the phylum Cnidaria.

Jellyfish don't have specialized digestive, osmoregulatory, central nervous, respiratory, or circulatory systems. They digest using the gastrodermal lining of the gastrovascular cavity, where nutrients are absorbed. They do not need a respiratory system since their skin is thin enough that the body is oxygenated by diffusion. They have limited control over movement, but can use their hydrostatic skeleton to accomplish movement through contraction-pulsations of the bell-like body; some species actively swim most of the time, while others are passive much of the time. Jellyfish are composed of more than 90% water; most of their umbrella mass is a gelatinous material - the jelly - called mesoglea which is surrounded by two layers of epithelial cells which form the exumbrella (top surface) and subumbrella (bottom surface) of the bell, or body.

Jellyfish do not have a brain or central nervous system, but rather have a loose network of nerves, located in the epidermis, which is called a "nerve net." A jellyfish detects various stimuli including the touch of other animals via this nerve net, which then transmits impulses both throughout the nerve net and around a circular nerve ring, through the rhopalial lappet, located at the rim of the jellyfish body, to other nerve cells. Some jellyfish also have ocelli: light-sensitive organs that do not form images but which can detect light, and are used to determine up from down, responding to sunlight shining on the water's surface.

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The Amazing Banana

Doctors - Home Remedy: If you want a quick fix for flagging energy levels there's no better snack than a banana. Containing three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose - combined with fiber a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.

Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90 minute workout.

No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes. But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt making it the perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milk shake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heart burn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body so if you suffer from heart burn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a 'cooling' fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer, tryptophan.

Smoking: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, there by reducing our potassium levels. These can be re-balanced with the help of a high potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in 'The New England Journal of Medicine' eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that, if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart,with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So you see a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around.

So maybe its time to change that well known phrase so that we say, "A Banana a day keeps the doctor away."

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Were Wright Brothers the first to fly?

Wilbur and Orville Wright weren't just lucky to make the first flight. They played with flying paper models in their youth, and by 1901 they had made hundreds of wind tunnel tests. In 1902, their glider was the biggest flying machine ever built. Orville Wright wrote, "We now hold all the records! The largest machine...the longest time in the air, the smallest angle of descent, and the highest wind!"

They called on the machine making skills of Charles E. Taylor, and by February 1903 they had an engine. By June, they had built a propeller. They headed for Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in September to build their Flyer.

On Monday 13 December 1903, a toss of a coin gave Wilbur the honour of making the first flight. The engine and propeller powered the plane, the Flyer lifted off but immediately sank down, slightly damaged.

First flight?
By Friday 17 December 1903, the Flyer was fixed, and at 10h35, Orville made the first powered flight. It lasted 12 seconds. Wilbur made the second flight, which lasted less than a second longer than the first. Orville took the 3rd flight, covering 60 metres (200 ft) in 15 seconds. At noon, Wilbur made the fourth flight on that blustery day. The Flyer covered 255,6 metres (852 ft) in 59 seconds. He landed safely, but a sudden gust of wind sent the plane tumbling, breaking the wings and damaging the motor. There would be no more flights in 1903.

There were 5 men to witness the Wright Brothers' flights. Orville even set up a camera so that a Mr Daniels could take photographs. But there were no newspaper men. In the Spring of 1904, they built a new plane and invited the press. The weather was not quite right, but since the reporters were there, they tried anyway. The plane failed to lift off. The Wright Brothers didn't make the papers. They did fly again but spent the rest of their lives fighting about their patent and died without knowing the world finally recognised their work. In 1914, the Franklin Institute became the first scientific institution to recognise the Wright Brothers' achievement.

But were the Wright Brothers really the first to fly?
By the time the Wright brothers got their flyer up in the air, flying was a hobby for New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse. Working single-handedly in his barn, he designed and built his own engine and flying machine. Datings suggest that Pearse made his first flight in March 1902. His remarkable success remained unknown until fairly recently.

But there is an account of an even earlier flight...

"Two years, four months and three days before the successful flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, a birdlike monoplane took to the air at early dawn on August 14, 1901, near Bridgeport, Connecticut, carrying its inventor and builder, Gustave Whitehead, a distance of approximately a half mile." - Megan Adam, descendant of Gustave A. Whitehead.

Although there are no blueprints of Whitehead's craft, evidence is mounting that Whitehead might indeed have been the first to have taken to the sky in a machine-powered aircraft.

By 1901, the Wright Brothers had the best collection of lift data in the world, some based on the pioneering work on gliding made by George Cayley.

On 23 March 1903, they applied for a patent for their new invention. This allowed them to request a fee for using their design. Other aviators were furious and refused to pay.

It is thought that Charles W. Furras, mechanic for the Wright Brothers, became the first airplane passenger when Wilbur gave him a 29 second ride in 1908. The brothers also took passengers on demonstration flights when they spent a year in Europe in an attempt to sell their patent.

Although the Wright Brothers are credited with being the first to fly a powered aircraft in 1903, evidence is mounting that Gustave A. Whitehead took to the skies in his (above) monoplane in 1901.

A Boeing 747 is 70 metres (232 ft) long, 19 metres (63 ft) high and needs a runway of 3,2 km (10,500 ft). It weighs a massive 394 625 kg (870,000 pounds) at takeoff.

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Great White Bear

The polar bear rules the north. To the hardy native people who settled the harsh lands of the Arctic, the powerful hunter with the ghostly white coat is known as the “lonely roamer.” But most of us know the huge mammal as the polar bear. And the story of how the world’s largest land predator prospers in one of Earth’s harshest environments is the subject of the NATURE program Great White Bear.

In extraordinary scenes collected across the top of the world, Great White Bear shows that polar bears are prodigious roamers indeed. Single bears have been known to trek and swim as far as 3,000 miles across icy seas and mossy, treeless tundra in search of food. Typically, however, studies suggest the bears stay within a home range that is just a few hundred square miles. Still, polar bears, by far, range over the largest territories of any bear.

The reason for the huge territories, scientists believe, is the unpredictable availability of their favorite food: ringed seals. As Great White Bear shows, populations of this common, four-foot long arctic seal can build up and melt away mysteriously, much like the ice sheets the sleek swimmers often inhabit. In good years, the bears may not have to travel far to find a seal meal. But in bad years the dark, cream-spotted animals are few and far between.

Though polar bears are excellent swimmers — their scientific name, Ursus maritimus, means “sea bear” — they usually aren’t fast enough to catch a seal in open water. Instead, in winter, the bears creep within striking distance of one of the breathing holes the seals have made in the ice. When a seal pops its head out of the hole to catch a breath, as it must do every ten minutes or so, the bear leaps and yanks the unsuspecting bather out of the water.

Sometimes, however, bears take a more direct route: as Great White Bear shows, they will crash through the top layer of the ice itself in an effort to trap the seals that may be resting in the hollow space below.

Ringed seals are a staple of the polar bear diet. In early summer, when the seals like to bask in the warming sun, hunting bears must use a different strategy. They wait until the seals are asleep and then creep close, freezing in place when the snoozers periodically open an eye to check for danger. Eventually, if the seals don’t spot the stalker, the bear gets close enough to make a powerful pounce.

More often than not, however, the seals escape: some studies have shown that bears outwit their prey less than five percent of the time.

But when the hunting is good, bears can be finicky eaters. They will easily polish off a 100-pound meal consisting of the seal’s energy-packed skin and blubber, or fat layer. But they commonly will leave much of the less nutritious muscle behind. Young bears will sometimes devour the leftovers, but it is often another Arctic inhabitant — an Arctic fox or gull — that rushes in to claim a free meal.

It can take a lot of seals to satisfy a polar bear. Males can be ten feet tall and weigh 1,500 pounds, while females are smaller, topping the scales at about 550 pounds. Remarkably, however, the huge animals can withstand lengthy periods without food. Male bears, for instance, are routinely forced to go without a major meal for three or four months each summer, when melting ice prevents them from hunting seals. And pregnant females apparently go without food for eight months — a record among mammals. Mothers even keep fasting for some weeks after their one-pound cubs, usually twins, are born between late November and January. By the time the cubs have left her care one to three years later, however, the mother has rebuilt her energy stores and is ready for another litter.

To survive their forced diets, polar bears burn a thick layer of reserve fat. In some cases, this layer can be up to five inches thick. But the blubber doesn’t just store energy: in winter, it also provides an excellent insulating blanket in temperatures that can plunge to 40 degrees below zero. Other adaptations, such as a small tail and ears and two layers of specialized heat-trapping fur, also help the bears conserve heat. In addition, each hair of a polar bear’s coat is hollow and transparent, helping to draw the sun’s rays toward the bear’s black skin. But when things get too cold, even polar bears must seek shelter, digging out snow caves in which they curl up like giant furry balls.

In summer, however, that same fat can present a problem. Polar bears can easily overheat when they run — which probably explains why they spend much of their time loping across the landscape at such a leisurely pace. In the southern part of their range, where summer temperatures can rise to levels downright blistering for bears, they may even take to the water simply to stay cool. Such strategies have allowed polar bears, which can live for 30 years, to prosper for at least 200,000 years in a challenging Arctic landscape that is by winter enveloped in icy darkness and by summer bathed by a never-setting sun.

But hunting and environmental changes, such as signs that a warming climate could be melting pack ice, may be taking their toll on the bears. And concern is growing about pollutants, such as mercury and other toxic chemicals, that are making their way into the once pristine Arctic food chain. As a result, scientists are keeping an increasingly close eye on the up to 40,000 bears that live in Canada, Russia, Alaska, Greenland, and Norway. “If a polar bear population is healthy, then one can probably safely assume that the rest of the components of that food chain are doing well,” explains a spokesman for the Canadian Wildlife Service, which has sponsored extensive monitoring studies. “However, if problems develop with polar bear populations, it may indicate problems elsewhere in the ecosystem.”

The goal, scientists involved in such studies say, is to make sure that the Arctic’s great white bear continues to roam across the top of the world.

http://www.pbs.org/

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Bruce Lee

Actor, martial arts expert. Born Lee Jun Fan, on November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, California. His father, a Hong Kong opera singer, moved with his wife and three children to the United States in 1939; his fourth child, a son, was born while he was on tour in San Francisco. Lee’s mother called him “Bruce,” which means “strong one” in Gaelic. Young Bruce appeared in his first film at the age of three months, when he served as the stand-in for an American baby in Golden Gate Girl.

In 1941, the Lees moved back to Hong Kong, then occupied by the Japanese. Apparently a natural in front of the camera, Bruce Lee appeared in roughly 20 films as a child actor, beginning in 1946. He also studied dance, once winning a cha-cha competition. As a teenager, he became a member of a Hong Kong street gang, and in 1953 began studying kung fu to sharpen his fighting skills. In 1959, after Lee got into trouble with the police for fighting, his mother sent him back to the U.S. to live with family friends outside Seattle, Washington.

Lee finished high school in Edison, Washington, and subsequently enrolled as a philosophy major at the University of Washington. He also got a job teaching the Wing Chun style of martial arts that he had learned in Hong Kong to his fellow students and others. Through his teaching, Lee met Linda Emery, whom he married in 1964. By that time, Lee had opened his own martial arts school in Seattle. He and Linda soon moved to California, where Lee opened two more schools in Los Angeles and Oakland. At his schools, Lee taught mostly a style he called Jeet Kune Do.

Lee gained a measure of celebrity with his role in the television series The Green Hornet, which aired from 1966 to 1967. In the show, which was based on a 1930s radio program, the small, wiry Lee displayed his acrobatic and theatrical fighting style as the Hornet’s loyal sidekick, Kato. He went on to make guest appearances in such TV shows as Ironside and Longstreet, while his most notable role came in the 1969 film Marlowe, starring James Garner. Confronted with the dearth of meaty roles and the prevalence of stereotypes regarding actors of Asian heritage, Lee left Los Angeles for Hong Kong in 1971, with his wife and two children (Brandon, born in 1965, and Shannon, born in 1967).

Back in the city where he had grown up, Lee signed a two-film contract. Fists of Fury (its U.S. title) was released in late 1971, featuring Lee as a vengeful fighter chasing the villains who had killed his kung-fu master. Combining his smooth Jeet Kune Do athleticism with the high-energy theatrics of his performance in The Green Hornet, Lee was the charismatic center of the film, which set new box office records in Hong Kong. Those records were broken by Lee’s next film, The Chinese Connection (1972), which, like Fists of Fury, received poor reviews from critics when they were released in the U.S.

By the end of 1972, Lee was a major movie star in Asia. He had founded his own production company, Concord Pictures, and had released his first directorial feature, Way of the Dragon. Though he had not yet gained stardom in America, he was poised on the brink with his second directorial feature and first major Hollywood project, Enter the Dragon.

On July 20, 1973, just one month before the premiere of Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong at the age of 32. The official cause of his sudden and utterly unexpected death was a brain edema, found in an autopsy to have been caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller he was reportedly taking for a back injury. Controversy surrounded Lee’s death from the beginning, as some claimed he had been murdered. He was also widely believed to have been cursed, a conclusion driven by Lee’s obsession with his own early death. (The tragedy of the so-called curse was compounded in 1993, when Brandon Lee was killed under similarly mysterious circumstances during the filming of The Crow. The 28-year-old actor was fatally shot with a gun that supposedly contained blanks but somehow had a live round lodged deep within its barrel.)

With the posthumous release of Enter the Dragon, Lee’s status as a film icon was confirmed. The film went on to gross a total of over $200 million, and Lee’s legacy created a whole new breed of action hero—a mold filled with varying degrees of success by such actors as Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, and Jackie Chan.

http://www.biography.com/

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Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Dunham’s mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G. I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.

Meantime, Barack’s father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama’s parents were students at the East–West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama’s father went to Harvard to pursue Ph. D. studies and then returned to Kenya.

His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East–West Center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro–Ng was born. Obama attended schools in Jakarta, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language.

Four years later when Barack (commonly known throughout his early years as "Barry") was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in 1995).

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy, graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. This is where Obama first became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African–American.

In his memoir, Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. And he admitted using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science.

After working at Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

It was during this time that Obama, who said he "was not raised in a religious household," joined the Trinity United Church of Christ. He also visited relatives in Kenya, which included an emotional visit to the graves of his father and paternal grandfather.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In February 1990, he was elected the first African–American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Obama graduated magna cum laude in 1991.

After law school, Obama returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer, joining the firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School. And he helped organize voter registration drives during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Obama published an autobiography in 1995 Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. And he won a Grammy for the audio version of the book.

Obama’s advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat. He was elected in 1996 from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park.

During these years, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics, expanded health care services and early childhood education programs for the poor. He also created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor. And after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U. S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Obama was an early opponent of President George W. Bush’s push to war with Iraq. Obama was still a state senator when he spoke against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq during a rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza in October 2002.

"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars," he said. "What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

"He's a bad guy," Obama said, referring to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U. S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences," Obama continued. "I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

The war with Iraq began in 2003 and Obama decided to run for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. In the 2004 Democratic primary, he won 52 percent of the vote, defeating multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes.

That summer, he was invited to deliver the keynote speech in support of John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Obama emphasized the importance of unity, and made veiled jabs at the Bush administration and the diversionary use of wedge issues.

"We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states," he said. "We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

After the convention, Obama returned to his U.S. Senate bid in Illinois. His opponent in the general election was suppose to be Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, a wealthy former investment banker. However, Ryan withdrew from the race in June 2004, following public disclosure of unsubstantiated sexual allegations by Ryan's ex wife, actress Jeri Ryan.

In August 2004, diplomat and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, who was also an African-American, accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. In three televised debates, Obama and Keyes expressed opposing views on stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers and tax cuts.

In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest electoral victory in Illinois history. Obama became only the third African-American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

Sworn into office January 4, 2005, Obama partnered with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. Then with Republican Sen. Tom Corburn of Oklahoma, he created a website that tracks all federal spending.

Obama was also the first to raise the threat of avian flu on the Senate floor, spoke out for victims of Hurricane Katrina, pushed for alternative energy development and championed improved veterans´ benefits. He also worked with Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress.

His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006.

In February 2007, Obama made headlines when he announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He was locked in a tight battle with former first lady and current U.S. Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton until he became the presumptive nominee on June 3, 2008. On November 4th, 2008, Obama defeated Republican presidential nominee John McCain for the position of U.S. President. He is now the 44th president of the United States.

Obama met his wife, Michelle, in 1988 when he was a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin. They were married in October 1992 and live in Kenwood on Chicago's South Side with their daughters, Malia (born 1998) and Sasha (born 2001).

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