Eiffel Tower

Built for the Universal Exhibition in celebration of the French Revolution centenary, the Eiffle Tower hoisting the flag to the top was inaugurated on March 31st 1889.
In spite of big protests and harsh critics of Parisians and French intellectuals during its construction, the metal structure has become today the symbol of Paris, attracting over 6 million visitors each year.Its a puddled iron erected with a crossbar system made of 18.038 pieces and fixed with 2.500.000 rivets. The structure of Gustave Eiffel's masterpiece is very airy and resistent to the wind. Notwithstanding its robust and stout structure it only weighs 7,300 tons.From the ground to the flagpole its height was 312,27 meters in 1889, whereas it is today, 324 meters high with antennae. Different French television companies install their antennae right on top of the tower.

Owned by Paris local government and managed by a French private company "Société Nouvelle d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel", this structure is maintained and renovated every 7 years with 50 tons of paint executed by workers who master acrobatic and climbing sports.

Egyptian Pyramid

The most famous pyramids are the Egyptian pyramids — huge structures built of brick or stone, some of which are among the largest man-made constructions. Some Egyptologists, notably Mark Lehner, state that the Ancient Egyptian word for pyramid was mer.The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest in Egypt and one of the largest in the world. Until Lincoln Cathedral was built in 1300 A.D., it was the tallest building in the world. The base is over 52,600 square meters in area.

It is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and the only one of the seven to survive into modern times. The Ancient Egyptians capped the peaks of their pyramids with gold and covered their faces with polished white limestone, though many of the stones used for the purpose have fallen or been removed for other structures.

Pyramids

A pyramid (from Greek πυραμίδoς - pyramidos, genitive of πυραμίς - pyramis) is any three-dimensional polyhedron where the faces other than the base are triangular and converge on one point, called the apex. The base of a pyramid can be any polygon but is typically a square, leading to four non-base faces.

A pyramid is said to be regular if its base is a regular polygon and its upper faces are congruent isosceles triangles.

Cutting off the top of a pyramid, using a plane parallel to the plane of the base, leaves a frustum of a pyramid, sometimes called a flat-topped pyramid, though it no longer satisfies the definition of a pyramid.

Effects Due To Increased Global Warming

Climate modelprojections summarized by the IPCC indicate that average global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century.This range of values results from the use of differing scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions as well as models with differing climate sensitivity. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise are expected to continue for more than a thousand years even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized. The delay in reaching equilibrium is a result of the large heat capacity of the oceans.
Increasing global temperature is expected to cause sea level to rise, an increase in the intensity of extreme weather events, and significant changes to the amount and pattern of precipitation. Other expected effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, modifications of trade routes, glacier retreat, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.

Remaining scientific uncertainties include the amount of warming expected in the future, and how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there is ongoing political and public debate worldwide regarding what, if any, action should be taken to reduce or reverse future warming or to adapt to its expected consequences.

Global Warming

Global warming is the increase in the average measured temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century, and its projected continuation.

The average global air temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations" via an enhanced greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.

These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science,including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with some findings of the IPCC,the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC's main conclusions.

Dec 7th 1947

In the summer of 1941, after Japanese expansion into French Indochina, the U.S. ceased oil exports to Japan, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had earlier moved the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii and ordered a buildup in the Philippines, hoping to deter Japanese aggression in the Far East. The Japanese high command was certain, though mistakenly so, an attack on the United Kingdom's colonies would bring the U.S. into the war, so a preventive strike appeared to be the only way Japan could avoid U.S. interference in the Pacific. While the attack accomplished its intended objective, it was completely unnecessary--unbeknownst to Isoroku Yamamoto, who conceived the original plan, the U.S. Navy had decided to abandon any intention of 'charging' across the Pacific towards the Philippines at the outset of war back in 1935 (in keeping with the evolution of War Plan Orange). They instead adopted "Plan Dog" in 1940, which emphasized keeping the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) out of the eastern Pacific and the shipping lanes to Australia, while the U.S. concentrated on defeating Nazi Germany.

The attack was one of the most important engagements of World War II. Occurring as it did before a formal declaration of war, it pushed U.S. public opinion from isolationism to an acceptance war was unavoidable, as Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 "... a date which will live in infamy."

Motto Of The Pearl Harbor Attack

The aim of the strike was to protect Imperial Japan's advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies — for their natural resources such as oil and rubber — by neutralizing the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Both the U.S. and Japan had long-standing contingency plans for war in the Pacific, continuously updated as tension between the two countries steadily increased during the 1930s. Japan's expansion into Manchuria and French Indochina were greeted with steadily increasing levels of embargoes and sanctions by the United States and others. In 1940, under the Export Control Act, the U.S. halted shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools, and aviation gasoline, which Japan saw as an unfriendly act.Nevertheless, the U.S. continued to export oil to Japan, in part because it was understood in Washington cutting off oil exports would be an extreme step, given Japanese dependence on U.S. oil exports, likely to be taken as a provocation by Japan.

Pearl Harbor attack

The attack on Pearl Harbor or Hawaii Operation as it was called by the Imperial General Headquarters, was a surprise attack against the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Japanese navy, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, resulting in the United States becoming involved in World War II. It was intended as a preventive action to remove the U.S. Pacific Fleet as a factor in the war Japan was about to wage against Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States. Two aerial attack waves, totaling 353 aircraft, launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers.

The attack wrecked two U.S. Navy battleships, one minelayer, and two destroyers beyond repair, and destroyed 188 aircraft; personnel losses were 2,388 killed and 1,178 wounded. Damaged warships included three cruisers, a destroyer, and six battleships (one deliberately grounded, later refloated and repaired; two sunk at their berths, later raised, repaired, and eventually restored to Fleet service). Vital fuel storage, shipyard, maintenance, and headquarters facilities were not hit. Japanese losses were minimal, at 29 aircraft and five midget submarines, with 65 servicemen killed or wounded.

BRUCE LEE

As an adolescent, Bruce Lee studied the martial arts style of Wing Chun and was a student of Yip Man in Hong Kong. Later, he learned other arts as well as the sports of western boxing and European fencing. The term Jeet Kune Do occurred in 1965 while Dan Inosanto and Bruce Lee were driving around in his car. The conversation involved European fencing and Lee commented that; "the most efficient means of countering in fencing was the stop-hit....When the opponent attacks, you intercept his move with a thrust or hit of your own...." Lee then said "We should call our method the 'stop-hitting fist style, or the 'intercepting fist style". Dan Inosanto then said; "What would that be in Chinese?" in which Lee replied "That would be Jeet Kune Do".[2]

A television episode of Bruce Lee discussing his Jeet Kune Do appeared in the series Longstreet. The episode was aptly titled "The Way of the Intercepting Fist". The episode was written specifically for Lee by his friend and long-time supporter

BRUCE LEE's formless fighting style

Jeet Kune Do (JKD) is the name Bruce Lee gave to his combat philosophy in 1967. Originally, when Lee began researching various fighting styles, he gave his martial art his own name of Jun Fan Gung Fu. However not wanting to create another style that would share the limitations that all styles have, he instead gave us the process that created it.

JKD as it survives today—if one wants to view it "refined" as a product, not a process—is what was left at the time of Bruce Lee's death. It is the result of the life-long martial arts development process Lee went through. Bruce Lee stated that his ideals are not an "adding to" of more and more things on top of each other to form a system, but rather, a winnowing out. The metaphor Lee borrowed from Chan Buddhism was of constantly filling a cup with water, and then emptying it, used for describing Lee's philosophy of "casting off what is useless". He also used the sculptor's mentality of beginning with a lump of clay and hacking away at the "unessentials"; the end result was what he considered to be the bare combat essentials, or JKD.

Bruce Lee, and thus JKD, was heavily influenced by European boxing and fencing. Although the backbone concepts (such as centerline, vertical punching, and forward pressure) come from Wing Chun, Lee stopped using the Wing Chun stances in favor of what he considered to be more fluid/flexible fencing and boxing stances. Lee stated that they allowed him to "flow" rather than being stuck in stances. For instance, instead of using footwork to position the body for maximum fighting position vis-a-vis the opponent, JKD uses flowing "entries" that do not require "bridges" from Wing Chun. Bruce Lee wanted to create a martial art that was unbounded and free. Later during the development of Jeet Kune Do, he would expand that notion and include the art for personal development, not just to become a better fighter. To illustrate Lee's views, in a 1971 Black Belt Magazine article, Lee said "Let it be understood once and for all that I have NOT invented a new style, composite or modification. I have in no way set Jeet Kune Do within a distinct form governed by laws that distinguish it from 'this' style or 'that' method. On the contrary, I hope to free my comrades from bondage to styles, patterns and doctrines." He took a lot of theories and principles and made them applicable to the martial arts. He mixed them together and showed people that they had no need of style—only to take what works and find their own path with it.

While practicing European wrestling Lee was once pinned by an opponent, who asked what Lee would do if he found himself in the situation in a real fight. Lee replied, "Well, I'd bite you, of course". One of the theories of JKD is that a fighter should do whatever is necessary to defend himself, regardless of where the techniques used come from. Lee's goal in Jeet Kune Do was to break down what he claimed were limiting factors in the training of the traditional styles, and seek a fighting thesis which he believed could only be found within the event of a fight. Jeet Kune Do is currently seen as the genesis of the modern state of hybrid martial arts.