The game of soccer, or association football as it is properly called, is the world’s most popular team sport. Virtually every country on Earth plays the game in some form or another. It is both physically and intellectually demanding, requiring athletic skill and quick thinking. Brazil’s Pelé, perhaps the greatest player the sport has ever known, called soccer “the beautiful game”. Various civilizations lay claim to inventing the sport. There are records of soccer like games having been played in ancient Greece, Japan, and Mexico. The Romans played a game known as harpastum that spread throughout Europe and was probably the origin of modern soccer. England, however, was the real starting place of today’s game. In 1863 the Football Association (FA) was created and uniform rules were established there. In 1872 the first international game was played between England and Scotland. And it was in England that soccer professionalism was legalized in 1885. From there the game spread throughout the Empire and to the rest of the world. By 1904 an international governing body was established to control the sport—the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Today, FIFA, which is headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, has more than 140 member nations and oversees the activity of about 39 million players worldwide.
Electricity
The world’s modern economies, with their industrial, transportation, and communication systems, were made possible by electricity. Old energy forms, such as water and steam, imposed limitations on production—limitations on where goods could be produced and on how much could be produced. Electricity has no such limits: it can go any where, even far into space. The development of electricity has resulted in the total transformation of civilization in most countries. It brings power into homes to operate lights, kitchen appliances, television sets, radios, furnaces, computers, garage doors, and more. So common are its uses that one cannot imagine today’s world without it. Streets would not be lit. Telephones would not work. Storefronts and factories would be dimmed. Electrical forces are also responsible for holding body cells together in the shape they have. In fact, electrical forces are fundamental in holding all matter together. As printed words are being read, electric currents speed along nerve cells from eye to brain. The effect of an electric current can be seen in the flash of lightning between thundercloud and Earth as well as in the spark that can be produced when one walks on a carpet in a dry room.The fact that electrical force decreases rapidly as the distance between the charges increases.
Newspaper
During the Middle Ages manuscript newsletters containing political and commercial information were circulated among the few people who could read. There were also occasional news books, or pamphlets, detailing an unusual event such as a battle. Between 1590 and 1610 about 450 news books were published in England alone. The first true newspapers were derived from commercial bulletins early in the 17th century. These bulletins circulated among the merchants of port cities such as Antwerp and Venice, and they carried news brought back by ship captains and crews from distant places. These early papers were called corantos, or “currents of news.” They appeared first in Holland and shortly after in England and France. Other countries also soon had their rudimentary newspapers: Switzerland in 1610, Austria in 1620, Denmark in 1634, Sweden in 1645, and Poland in 1661. These were irregular publications, coming out when the news warranted it. No sooner did the first corantos begin carrying domestic and foreign news than censorship appeared. The first English publisher, Thomas Archer, was quickly imprisoned. Government management of news set in immediately. Domestic coverage was limited to trivialities. Serious political comment or coverage was forbidden. Foreign news was similarly censored in favor of government policy. Censorship lasted even longer on the Continent, and it carried over to the American colonies.
Television
Mindless entertainment has been provided by Television; outstanding presentations in drama, documentary, and the arts have been rewarded with viewers. Television made its impact on the society in the late 1940s, though this medium had been existing for some years. Its development was temporarily halted during World War II, but as soon as the war ended television sets were exhibited and sold in the market. The baseball’s World Series in 1947 was the first broadcast to be viewed by mass television audience. By this event people were tempted to buy television sets. Thus the networks began to expand their programming due to the large selling of sets. On June 8, 1948 Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater arrived on the screen, when the era of television as a modern entertainment form was launched. Your Show of Shows, which starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca This weekly comedy-variety. Their sponsors, stations, and networks made money because of these shows as they attracted millions of viewers. Trial and error, of diversification, and of learning what the mass audience wanted marked the early years of television. The television were a period of From the earliest days of mass broadcasting through the present time, audiences have wanted diversity in programming, and the networks have consistently complied.
Water
Nearly three fourths of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. Perhaps the most important liquid in the world, water is usually easy to get from rain, springs, wells, streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes. It fills the vast ocean beds. The bodies of most living things contain a large proportion of water. For example, water comprises about 60 percent of the weight of the human body. Water is necessary for life. Although today many plants and animals are able to live on land, they still need water. This life-sustaining liquid makes up most of the animal blood or plant sap that nourishes living tissues. Used but never used up, water constantly circulates throughout the world. A person taking a drink of water today may be drinking the same water that gave refreshment to a Stone Age man. Water’s physical properties make it vastly different from most other liquids. Water, for example, has the rare property of being lighter as a solid than as a liquid. If ice (solid water) were heavier than water, frozen water in a lake would sink to the bottom and pile up to the top, killing all the marine life. Water’s ability to store great amounts of heat helps living things survive through wide changes in temperature.
Soaps & Detergents
In the medieval ages, soaps were prepared at home and used for cleaning laundry. During the 19th century a luxury product that came into common use was none other than Cake soap. when the natural ingredients for soap became scarce during World War II, the other synthetic relatives of soap, detergents were formed. Detergents unlike the soap are synthetics and do not form easily biodegradable waste products. By the 1950s, detergents had become more popular for general laundering and dishwashing than soap .The main reason being that when soap is used in hard water (water that contains large amounts of dissolved mineral salts), its molecules—unlike detergent molecules—may react with the dissolved salts to form the whitish gray precipitate which resulted for bathtub ring. Many types of soap are used in various ways. The most common and famous is the bar soaps, shampoos used for personal bathing and shaving creams. Some soap is the primary components of cosmetic creams, and other soaps are used for drying paints, gelling agents and lubricating greases. Detergents are used basically for washing clothes and dishes, but detergents are also used in gasoline and lubricating oils used in automobiles and to dry-clean the solvents to help remove soil from garments.
Recycling
The recovery and reuse of materials from spent products—called recycling or materials salvage—is an ancient practice with many modern applications. In recent years recycling has become a major part of environmental policy, largely owing to the increased costs of solid- and hazardous-waste disposal, the scarcity of natural resources, and the growing concern over polluted land, water, and air. There are two types of recycling operations: internal and external. In internal recycling, an industry reclaims materials that are a waste product of a manufacturing process and reuses them within the same process. Internal recycling is common in the metals industry, for example. External recycling is the reclaiming of materials from a product that has been worn out or rendered obsolete. An example of external recycling is the collection of old newspapers and magazines for the manufacture of newsprint or other paper products. In some areas, industries are required to pretreat wastewater before it is funneled into a waterway. In homes, wastewater is sent to a sewage-treatment plant, where it is purified, recycled, and put back into the water-supply system. Many gardeners recycle organic, biodegradable kitchen scraps by mixing them with leaves and grass clippings in a compost mound. There the organic refuse decomposes and is biochemically transformed into usable soil humus.
Astrology
Astrology is the study of heavenly bodies to learn the influence that they might have on human life. From the beginning of civilization, humans have wondered and looked with awe at the heavens, seeking to interpret the nature of the stars, sun, planets and moon. The ancient Mesopotamians, Greeks, and Egyptians studied the regular movements of these bodies in the sky with a very constrained means available to them. The foundation for the science of astronomy was laid by their calculations. It is also a pseudoscience, which originated in speculations about influence of life on Earth by the heavens. There was no distinction between astrology and astronomy In the age old times, and also for many centuries thereafter,. Inspite of many people—especially astronomers and other scientists—believing in astrology as nothing more than a kind of superstition; it has had a reputed following in the past century. In the 1980s, specialized astrologers were in demand amongst the Stock brokers. many daily newspapers publish astrological advice and forecasts and are sold in vending machines. This subject is being published by numerous magazines and books every year. Astrological advice is given based on a form called a horoscope which a detailed chart is drawn up to indicate the influences by the heavenly bodies on the life of an individual born at a particular time.