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Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
Opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the species of plant from which opium and poppy seeds are extracted. Opium is the source of many opiates, including morphine, thebaine, codeine, papaverine, and noscapine.<br/><br/> The Latin botanical name means the 'sleep-bringing poppy', referring to the sedative properties of some of these opiates.
Areca is a genus of about 50 species of single-stemmed palms in the family Arecaceae, found in humid tropical forests from Malaysia to the Solomon Islands.<br/><br/>The nut is commonly used in conjunction with betel leaf, a mild stimulant. The combination of this and tobacco is chewed in a quid.<br/><br/>Betel leaf is mostly consumed in Asia, and elsewhere in the world by some Asian emigrants, as betel quid or paan, with or without tobacco, in an addictive psycho-stimulating and euphoria-inducing formulation with adverse health effects.<br/><br/>Chewing areca nut is an increasingly rare custom in the modern world. Yet once, not so long ago, areca nut – taken with the leaf of the betel tree and lime paste – was widely consumed throughout South and Southeast Asia by people of all social classes, and was considered an essential part of daily life.<br/><br/>The seed of the monocot group of flowering plants, rice is a cereal grain that comes in two major strains: Oryza sativa or Asian rice, and Oryza glaberrima or African rice.<br/><br/>For a large portion of the world’s population, particularly those in Central, East and South Asia, rice is one of the most important and most widely consumed food sources.<br/><br/>Etymologically the word rice comes from the Old French 'ris', dated from around the mid-13th century. The Old French term itself is believed to have been derived from the Italian 'riso', which in turn came from the Latin word 'oriza', and the Latin word derived from the Greek 'oruza', from which all European words for rice originate.
Areca is a genus of about 50 species of single-stemmed palms in the family Arecaceae, found in humid tropical forests from Malaysia to the Solomon Islands.<br/><br/>The nut is commonly used in conjunction with betel leaf, a mild stimulant. The combination of this and tobacco is chewed in a quid.<br/><br/>Betel leaf is mostly consumed in Asia, and elsewhere in the world by some Asian emigrants, as betel quid or paan, with or without tobacco, in an addictive psycho-stimulating and euphoria-inducing formulation with adverse health effects.<br/><br/>Chewing areca nut is an increasingly rare custom in the modern world. Yet once, not so long ago, areca nut – taken with the leaf of the betel tree and lime paste – was widely consumed throughout South and Southeast Asia by people of all social classes, and was considered an essential part of daily life.<br/><br/>The seed of the monocot group of flowering plants, rice is a cereal grain that comes in two major strains: Oryza sativa or Asian rice, and Oryza glaberrima or African rice.<br/><br/>For a large portion of the world’s population, particularly those in Central, East and South Asia, rice is one of the most important and most widely consumed food sources.<br/><br/>Etymologically the word rice comes from the Old French 'ris', dated from around the mid-13th century. The Old French term itself is believed to have been derived from the Italian 'riso', which in turn came from the Latin word 'oriza', and the Latin word derived from the Greek 'oruza', from which all European words for rice originate.
The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing, based on the Taqwim al‑sihha تقويم الصحة ('Maintenance of Health'), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad.<br/><br/> Ibn Butlân was a Christian physician born in Baghdad and who died in 1068. He sets forth the six elements necessary to maintain daily health: food and drink, air and the environment, activity and rest, sleep and wakefulness, secretions and excretions of humours, changes or states of mind (happiness, anger, shame, etc). According to Ibn Butlân, illnesses are the result of changes in the balance of some of these elements, therefore he recommended a life in harmony with nature in order to maintain or recover one’s health.<br/><br/> Ibn Butlân also teaches us to enjoy each season of the year, the consequences of each type of climate, wind and snow. He points out the importance of spiritual wellbeing and mentions, for example, the benefits of listening to music, dancing or having a pleasant conversation.<br/><br/> Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically profusely illustrated. The short paragraphs of the treatise were freely translated into Latin in mid-thirteenth-century Palermo or Naples, continuing an Italo-Norman tradition as one of the prime sites for peaceable inter-cultural contact between the Islamic and European worlds.<br/><br/> Four handsomely illustrated complete late fourteenth-century manuscripts of the Taccuinum, all produced in Lombardy, survive, in Vienna, Paris, Liège and Rome, as well as scattered illustrations from others, as well as fifteenth-century codices.
The British conquest of Burma began in 1824 in response to a Burmese attempt to invade India. By 1886, and after two further wars, Britain had incorporated the entire country into the British Raj. To stimulate trade and facilitate changes, the British brought in Indians and Chinese, who quickly displaced the Burmese in urban areas. To this day Rangoon and Mandalay have large ethnic Indian populations. Railways and schools were built, as well as a large number of prisons, including the infamous Insein Prison, then as now used for political prisoners.<br/><br/> Burmese resentment was strong and was vented in violent riots that paralysed Rangoon on occasion all the way until the 1930s. Burma was administered as a province of British India until 1937 when it became a separate, self-governing colony. Burma finally gained independence from Britain on January 4, 1948.
China Burma India Theater (CBI) was the name used by the United States Army for its forces operating in conjunction with British and Chinese Allied air and land forces in China, Burma, and India during World War II. Well-known US units in this theater included the Flying Tigers, transport and bomber units flying the Hump, the 1st Air Commando Group, the engineers who built Ledo Road, and the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), otherwise known as Merrill's Marauders.
This illustration first appeared in 1734 on a map of the Philippines by Spanish missionary Pedro Murillo Velarde. It shows farmers operating rudimentary ox-drawn ploughs while a woman husks rice under a hut.<br/><br/> From 1565 to 1821, the Philippines was governed as a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and then was administered directly from Madrid after the Mexican War of Independence. The Manila galleons linking Manila to Acapulco traveled once or twice a year between the 16th and 19th centuries. Trade introduced foods such as corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, and pineapples from the Americas. Roman Catholic missionaries converted most of the lowland inhabitants to Christianity and founded schools, a university, and hospitals.
The Qur’an (literally “the recitation”) is the main religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the verbal divine guidance and moral direction for mankind. Muslims also consider the original Arabic verbal text to be the final revelation of God. Muslims believe that the Qur’an was revealed from God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel from 610 to 632 CE, the year of the Prophet’s death. Muhammad recited the Qur’an to his thousands of followers, who recited it until they had memorized it. He also dictated it to his scribes (Muhammad was illiterate) who wrote down its verses during his lifetime. Shortly after Muhammad's death the Qur’an was established textually into a single book form by the order of the first Caliph Abu Bakr.