Portal:Society

Scouting is a worldwide youth movement aiming to develop young people physically, mentally and spiritually, so that they can play constructive roles within the society. Scouting began in 1907 when R.S.S. Baden-Powell, Lieutenant General in the British Army, held the first Scouting encampment at Brownsea Island, England. Baden-Powell wrote the principles of Scouting in Scouting for Boys, based on his earlier military books, with influence and support of Seton of the Woodcraft Indians, Smith of the Boys' Brigade, and his publisher Pearson. During the first half of the 20th century, the movement grew to encompass three major age groups for boys (Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Rover Scout) and for girls (Brownie Guide, Girl Guide and Girl Scout, Ranger Guide). The movement employs the Scout method, a program of non-formal education with emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports.

More selected articles

More...

The Ambassadors (1533) is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London. As well as being a double portrait, the painting contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate. The most notable and famous of Holbein's symbols in the work is the skewed skull, rendered in anamorphic perspective, which is placed in the painting's bottom centre. It is meant to be a visual puzzle as the viewer must approach the painting nearly from the side to see the form morph into an accurate rendering of a human skull.

More selected pictures

Read more

• ... that Chief Joseph and his warriors defeated the U.S. Army in 1877 at the Battle of Cottonwood as the Nez Perce began their 1,400 mile (2,300 km) fighting retreat?
• ... that William Jones bequeathed money to the Company of Haberdashers to found Monmouth School and provide almhouses for people "as blind and lame as it shall seem best to them"?
• ... that during the Sino-Xiongnu War, the Han empire attempted alliance with a people (pictured) whose king's skull the Xiongnu had made into a drinking cup?

More did you know facts

• 9 June 1886 - Centennial celebration of the foundation of the Stoughton Musical Society
• 14 June 1957 - IEEE Education Society was formed as the IRE Professional Group on Education
• 24 June 1834 - The Canadiens founded what would become the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society
• 30 June 1897 - Foundation of the Shanghai Foot Emancipation Society (foot binding pictured)

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian pronunciation: [leoˈnardo da ˈvintʃi] pronunciation^ⓘ) (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time. Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded him by Francis I. Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo. (Full article...)