User:HiDrNick/TFA blurbs

Anonymous double portrait of Qalaherriaq

Qalaherriaq (c. 1834 – 1856) was an Inughuit hunter from Cape York in northwestern Greenland. Born around 1834 and baptized Erasmus Augustine Kallihirua, he was taken aboard the British barque HMS Assistance in 1850 as an interpreter during the search for Franklin's lost expedition. He guided the ship to Wolstenholme Fjord to investigate rumors of a massacre of Franklin's crew, but found the corpses of local Inughuit and crew from an unrelated British vessel. Poor sea conditions prevented the Assistance from returning to Qalaherriaq's family, and he was instead taken to England and placed in the custody of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He was enrolled in St Augustine's College at Canterbury and studied English and Christianity. In 1855, he was tasked by Edward Feild, Bishop of Newfoundland, to join him on a mission to the Labrador Inuit. Qalaherriaq's health problems, which he had developed during his service as an interpreter, worsened after his arrival in Newfoundland, and he died at St. John's in 1856 around 22 years old. (Full article...)

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Arthur Oswin Austin (1879–1964) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He is best known as the inventor of the Austin transformer, used to supply power for lighting circuits on radio towers. Austin's work included improvements to radio transmission equipment and the effects of lightning on high-voltage transmission lines and aircraft. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and of the Institute of Radio Engineers, and was known as an expert in high-voltage insulators and fittings. His work on transmitting antennas included both military and civilian projects. Born in California, Austin graduated from Stanford University with a degree in electrical engineering. He spent most of his adult life in Ohio where he worked for the Ohio Brass Company and founded the Austin Insulator Company. He bought a large estate in Barberton, Ohio, lived in the mansion, and built an extensive outdoor electrical laboratory on the grounds. (Full article...)

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Rivers Cuomo, frontman of Weezer

Pinkerton is the second studio album by the American rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996, by DGC Records. To better capture their live sound, the band self-produced Pinkerton, creating a darker, more abrasive album than their 1994 debut Weezer. The lyrics express loneliness and disillusionment with the rock lifestyle, and reference Japanese culture. Pinkerton produced the singles "El Scorcho" and "The Good Life". It debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200, failing to match sales of Weezer's debut, and received mixed reviews; Rolling Stone readers voted it the third-worst album of 1996. For subsequent albums, Weezer returned to more traditional pop songwriting and less personal lyrics. In subsequent years, Pinkerton was reassessed; several publications named it one of the best albums of the 1990s, and it was certified platinum in 2016. (Full article...)

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SMS Helgoland

SMS Helgoland (pictured) was a dreadnought battleship of the German Imperial Navy. Her design improved from the Nassau class, including an increase in the bore diameter of the main guns. Her keel was laid down at the Howaldtswerke shipyards in Kiel, launched on 25 September 1909, and commissioned on 23 August 1911. During World War I the ship participated in several sweeps into the North Sea as the covering force for the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. She saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea against the Russian Navy, including serving as part of a support force during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. Helgoland was present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, though she was located in the center of the German line of battle and not as heavily engaged as the ships in the lead. She was ceded to Great Britain after the war and broken up for scrap in the early 1920s. Her coat of arms is preserved in the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden. (Full article...)

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The main stage of the tournament was played at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.

The 2023 World Snooker Championship took place from 15 April to 1 May 2023 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The qualifying rounds produced a 115 break by Ng On-yee, the highest by a woman in the tournament's history. The defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan made a record 31st appearance at the tournament's main stage, surpassing the 30 appearances by Steve Davis, but he lost 10–13 in the quarter-finals to Belgian player Luca Brecel. Si Jiahui became the first Crucible debutant to reach the semi-finals since Andy Hicks at the 1995 event. Brecel came from 5–14 behind to defeat Si 17–15, the first player to win a match at the Crucible after trailing by nine frames. Brecel went on to defeat Mark Selby 18–15 in the final, becoming the sport's first world champion from mainland Europe. Two maximum breaks were made at the main stage, one by Kyren Wilson in the first round and the other by Selby, who became the first player to make a 147 in a world final. (Full article...)

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Aristotle

Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena, or what people ought to do. It includes three main branches: normative ethics, which seeks general principles for how people should act; applied ethics, which addresses specific real-life ethical issues like abortion; and metaethics, which explores underlying concepts and assumptions. Influential normative theories are consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere to duties, like telling the truth. Virtue ethicists, such as Aristotle (pictured), see the manifestation of virtues, like courage, as the fundamental principle of morality. The history of ethics dates back to ancient civilizations and has evolved through religious influences in the medieval period to a more secular approach in the modern era, with the emergence of metaethics in the 20th century. (Full article...)

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Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) was a Russian composer and conductor, considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. He studied music under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov until the latter's death in 1908. Soon after, Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature. His compositional style varied greatly, being influenced at different points by Russian folklore, neoclassicism, and serialism. His ideas influenced the composers Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Béla Bartók, and Pierre Boulez, who were all challenged to innovate beyond traditional tonality, rhythm, and form. Stravinsky died in 1971, leaving six memoirs, an earlier autobiography, and a series of lectures. (Full article...)

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