Clemente Rodriguez — After failing to win a call-up during the qualifying competition for South Africa 2010, Clemente Rodriguez caught Diego Maradona’s eye with some exceptional performances for Estudiantes. The left-back, who can also operate down the right, was a feature of the side that won the Copa Libertadores last year and narrowly lost out to Barcelona in the final …

Bill Clinton — William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton was born on August 19, 1946. He was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. At 46 he was the third-youngest president. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and was the first baby boomer president. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is currently the United States …

Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine, she decided to make fiction writing her career. Thoroughly …

Angela Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in Hamburg on 17 July 1954, the daughter of Horst Kasner, a Lutheran pastor, and his wife, Herlind, a teacher of English and Latin. Her mother was once a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She has a brother, Marcus and a sister, Irene. Merkel was educated in Templin and at …

Aleksandr Pushkin — Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, [Born. June 6 (N.S.), 1799, Died. Feb. 10 (N.S.), 1837], was Russia’s greatest poet. His use of the vernacular as the language of poetry freed Russian writing from the constraints of tradition and set new literary standards for novelists and poets, and his preference for subjects from history and folklore brought fresh vitality to …

Maryland, one of the Middle Atlantic states of the United States, ranks 42d among the states in area, 19th in population size, and is a leading state in population density. CHESAPEAKE BAY, the largest bay in the continental United States, almost severs the state, dividing the Eastern Shore–which is located on the DELMARVA PENINSULA (shared by Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia)–from …

Alaska, the largest in area but one of the least populated U.S. states, lies astride the Arctic Circle, apart from the “Lower 48” conterminous states. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the Yukon Territory, on the southeast by British Columbia, on the south by the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean, …

Willow, Babylon Weeping — Salix babylonica (Peking Willow or Babylon Willow) is a species of willow native to dry areas of northern China, but cultivated for millennia elsewhere in Asia, being traded along the silk road to southwest Asia and Europe. It is a medium-sized to large deciduous tree, growing up to 20-25 m tall. It grows rapidly, but has …

Watermelon — Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum & Nakai, family Cucurbitaceae) refers to both fruit and plant of a vine-like (climber and trailer) herb originally from southern Africa and one of the most common types of melon. This flowering plant produces a special type of fruit known by botanists as a pepo, which has a thick rind (exocarp) and fleshy …

Tumbleweed — Salsola (also known as Tumbleweed, Saltwort or Russian thistle) is a genus of herbs, subshrubs, shrubs and small trees in the family Amaranthaceae, native to Africa, Asia, and Europe; they typically grow on flat, often dry and/or somewhat saline soils, with some species in saltmarshes. Recent genetic studies have however shown that the genus as traditionally circumscribed is …