A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

The tufted jay, also known as the painted jay and Dickey's jay, is a species of bird in the crow family Corvidae. It is endemic to a small area of the Sierra Madre Occidental in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Nayarit. A distinctive large jay, it has a prominent dark crest on its head; purplish blue back, wings, and face; a white spot above the eye and on the cheek; white undersides; and a partially white tail. Its typical call is a quick, four-note vocalization.

Melaka Fray is a fictional character in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics published by Dark Horse Comics. She debuts in the first issue of Fray (2001), a limited series in a shared universe with the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Living in the 23rd century, Melaka is a professional thief who learns that she is a Slayer destined to fight supernatural foes. She has a Slayer's physical powers, while her twin brother Harth inherited their prophetic dreams. Melaka discovers that Harth, whom she believed was dead, has become a vampire intent on bringing demons back to Earth's dimension. After stopping his plan, she remains a thief, but chooses to protect others as well. In Tales of the Slayers, she connects with her heritage by reading journals about past Slayers. Melaka reappears in the canonical comic book continuation of the television series, meeting the 21st century Slayer Buffy Summers in Season Eight and helping her defeat Harth in Season Twelve.

The Algemeyne Entsiklopedye is a Yiddish-language encyclopedia published in twelve volumes from 1934 to 1966. It is divided into two subseries: five volumes of the Normale series, covering general knowledge, and six volumes of the Yidn series covering Jewish history and culture through a series of essays. The encyclopedia's early volumes emphasize leftist history and politics, although the project shifted in tone in response to Nazi persecution, and became increasingly focused on covering Jewish topics. After the destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe—the encyclopedia's main audience—in the Holocaust, it transformed from a general-purpose resource into an effort to commemorate what was lost.

The Rhodesian government actively recruited white personnel from other countries from the mid-1970s until 1980 to address manpower shortages in the Rhodesian Security Forces during the Rhodesian Bush War. It is estimated that between 800 and 2,000 foreign volunteers enlisted. The issue attracted a degree of controversy as Rhodesia was the subject of international sanctions that banned military assistance due to its illegal declaration of independence and the control that the small white minority exerted over the country. The volunteers were often labelled as mercenaries by opponents of the Rhodesian regime, though the Rhodesian government did not regard or pay them as such.

The Battle of Bronkhorstspruit was the first major engagement of the First Boer War. It took place by the Bronkhorstspruit river, near the town of Bronkhorstspruit, Transvaal, on 20 December 1880. Threatened by the growing numbers of militant Boers in the Pretoria region, the British recalled the 94th Regiment of Foot, which had several companies garrisoned in towns and villages across the wider area. The regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther, led a 34-wagon column consisting of roughly 250 men on a 188-mile (303 km) journey from Lydenburg back to Pretoria. A similar-sized Boer commando force, led by Francois Gerhardus Joubert, was ordered to intercept and stop the British.

The Getaway is a 1972 American action thriller film based on the 1958 novel by Jim Thompson. The film was directed by Sam Peckinpah and written by Walter Hill, and stars the husband-and-wife team of Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, along with Ben Johnson, Al Lettieri, and Sally Struthers. The plot follows imprisoned mastermind robber Carter "Doc" McCoy, whose wife Carol conspires for his release on the condition they rob a bank in Texas. A double-cross follows the crime, and the McCoys are forced to flee for Mexico with the police and criminals in hot pursuit.

A Caesar cipher is one of the simplest and most widely known encryption techniques used in cryptography. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet. For example, with a left shift of 3, D would be replaced by A, E would become B, and so on. The method is named after Julius Caesar, who used it in his private correspondence.

Around June 1447, the abbot of Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, Northern England, John Greenwell, was poisoned by a monk, William Downom. By the 15th century, Fountains was the richest abbey in England, and its abbot was an important figure in local political society. The first half of the century saw it wracked with internal strife, including a disputed election which had violent repercussions and, possibly, embezzlement. Greenwell appears to have brought a degree of peace to the abbey upon his election, but he does not seem to have been popular.

The Littlehampton libels were a series of letters sent to numerous residents of Littlehampton, in southern England, over a three-year period between 1920 and 1923. The letters, which contained obscenities and false accusations, were written by Edith Swan, a thirty-year-old laundress; she tried to incriminate her neighbour, Rose Gooding, a thirty-year-old married woman.

Simon Cameron was an American businessman and politician who served four terms as a United States senator for Pennsylvania. His political career spanned more than half a century. He also served as United States Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War.

Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons is a three-part episodic side-scrolling platform video game developed by Ideas from the Deep and published by Apogee Software in 1990 for MS-DOS. It is the first set of episodes of the Commander Keen series. The game follows the titular Commander Keen, an eight-year-old child genius, as he retrieves the stolen parts of his spaceship from the cities of Mars, prevents a recently arrived alien mothership from destroying landmarks on Earth, and hunts down the leader of the aliens, the Grand Intellect, on the alien home planet. The three episodes feature Keen running, jumping, and shooting through various levels while opposed by aliens, robots, and other hazards.

Scott David Zolak is an American broadcaster and former professional football player. He played quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons, primarily with the New England Patriots. Over the course of his career, he played in 55 games, with 7 starts, for the Patriots and Miami Dolphins, completed 124 of 248 passes for 1,314 yards, threw eight touchdowns and seven interceptions, and finished his career with a passer rating of 64.8.

Theodosius III was Byzantine emperor from c. May 715 to 25 March 717. Before rising to power and seizing the throne of the Byzantine Empire, he was a tax collector in Adramyttium. In 715, the Byzantine navy and the troops of the Opsician Theme, one of the Byzantine provinces, revolted against Emperor Anastasius II, acclaiming the reluctant Theodosius as emperor. Theodosius led his troops to Chrysopolis and then Constantinople, the capital, seizing the city in November 715. Anastasius did not surrender until several months later, accepting exile in a monastery in return for safety. Many themes viewed Theodosius to be a puppet of the troops of the Opsician Theme, and his legitimacy was denied by the Anatolics and the Armeniacs under their respective strategoi (generals) Leo the Isaurian and Artabasdos.

Edmund Ætheling was a son of Edmund Ironside and his wife Ealdgyth. Edmund Ironside briefly ruled as king of England following the death of his father Æthelred the Unready in April 1016. Edmund Ironside died in late 1016 after a hard-fought war with Danish invader Cnut, who became king of all England shortly after.

Macrobdella decora, also known as the North American medicinal leech, is a species of leech found in much of eastern North America in freshwater habitats. M. decora is a parasite of vertebrates, including humans, and an aquatic predator of eggs, larvae, and other invertebrates. It is a medium-sized leech with a spotted greenish-brown back and a reddish or orange underbelly with black spots. It has ten ocelli, or simple eyes, arranged in a horseshoe shape, as well as three long jaws. Internally, a pharynx takes up a tenth of its digestive tract; a stomach, the majority of its body length. The stomach connects to an intestine, followed by a colon, a rectum, and finally an anus located on the leech's back. M. decora, like all leeches, is hermaphroditic, and has twenty testisacs and two ovisacs, in addition to male and female genital pores. First described by Thomas Say in 1824, the species is now placed in the genus Macrobdella. Its closest relative is believed to be the species Macrobdella diplotertia. It is not considered to be endangered.

The Coventry ring road, designated as the A4053, is a 2.25-mile (3.62 km) ring road in Coventry, England, which forms a complete dual-carriageway loop around the city centre. The road encompasses the old and new Coventry Cathedrals, the city's shopping areas and much of Coventry University. With the exception of one roundabout at junction 1, the ring road's nine junctions are grade separated and closely spaced, with weaving sections between them, some as short as 300 yards (270 m), giving the road a reputation for being difficult to navigate. The junctions include connections with three other A-roads: the A4114, A4600 and A429.

The 2015 Trophée Éric Bompard was a figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU), organized and hosted by the French Federation of Ice Sports, and the fourth event of the 2015–16 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. It was held at the Patinoire de Mériadeck in Bordeaux, France, on 13 November 2015. Medals were awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. Skaters earned points based on their results, and the top skaters or teams in each discipline at the end of the season were then invited to compete at the 2015–16 Grand Prix Final in Barcelona, Spain.

Jefferson F. Davis was the only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

Raichu is a Pokémon species in Nintendo and Game Freak's Pokémon media franchise, and the evolved form of series mascot Pikachu. First introduced in the 1996 video games Pokémon Red and Blue, it was created by Atsuko Nishida at the request of lead designer Ken Sugimori, with the design finalized by Sugimori. Since Raichu's debut, it has appeared in multiple games including Pokémon Go and the Pokémon Trading Card Game, as well as various merchandise. In media related to the franchise, Raichu has been voiced by various voice actors, including Kei Shindō, Fumiko Takekuma, and Casey Mongillo.

Raichu is a Pokémon species in Nintendo and Game Freak's Pokémon media franchise, and the evolved form of series mascot Pikachu. First introduced in the 1996 video games Pokémon Red and Blue, it was created by Atsuko Nishida at the request of lead designer Ken Sugimori, with the design finalized by Sugimori. Since Raichu's debut, it has appeared in multiple games including Pokémon Go and the Pokémon Trading Card Game, as well as various merchandise. In media related to the franchise, Raichu has been voiced by various voice actors, including Kei Shindō, Fumiko Takekuma, and Casey Mongillo.

The Mechanical Turk, also known as the Automaton Chess Player, or simply the Turk, was a chess-playing machine first displayed in 1770, which appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess autonomously, but whose pieces were in reality moved via levers and magnets by a chess master hidden in its lower cavity. The machine was toured and exhibited for 84 years as an automaton, and continued giving occasional exhibitions until 1854, when it was destroyed in a fire. In 1857, an article published by the owner's son provided the first full explanation of the mechanism, which had been widely suspected to be a hoax but never accurately described while the machine still existed.

The Regional Flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China depicts a white stylised five-petal Hong Kong orchid tree flower in the centre of a Chinese red field. Its design is enshrined in Hong Kong Basic Law, the territory's constitutional document, and regulations regarding its use, prohibition of use, desecration, and manufacture are stated in the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance.

Ovalipes catharus, commonly known as the paddle crab, swimming crab, or, in Māori, pāpaka, is a species of crab in the family Ovalipidae. It is found in shallow, sandy-bottomed waters around the coasts of New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, and uncommonly in southern Australia. O. catharus is an opportunistic, aggressive, and versatile feeder active mostly at night, preying predominantly on molluscs and crustaceans. It is also highly prone to cannibalism, which accounts for over a quarter of its diet in some locations. The crab's paddle-shaped rear legs and streamlined carapace allow it to capture prey by swimming rapidly and to escape predation by burrowing in the sand. Its mating season is in winter and spring; the male carries the female until she moults, after which the two mate and the female likely moves into deeper waters to incubate and disperse her larvae.

SMS Pommern was one of five Deutschland-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Kaiserliche Marine between 1904 and 1906. Named after the Prussian province of Pomerania, she was built at the AG Vulcan yard at Stettin, Germany, where she was laid down on 22 March 1904 and launched on 2 December 1905. She was commissioned into the navy on 6 August 1907. The ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots. The ships of her class were already outdated by the time they entered the service, being inferior in size, armor, firepower, and speed to the revolutionary new battleship HMS Dreadnought.