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I had closed the door upon my
heart
And wouldn't let anyone in,
I had trusted and loved only to be
hurt
But, that would never happen
again.
I had locked the door and tossed
the key
As hard, and as far as I could,
Love would never enter there
again,
My heart was closed for good.
Then you came into my life
And made me change my mind,
Just when I thought that tiny key
was impossible to find.
That's when you held out your
hand
And proved to me I was wrong,
Inside your palm was the key to
my heart...
You had it all along.

 

We are here my love together
again
Back where we should have always
been
Back where we were meant to be
Together as one just you and me
While we were apart it seemed so
wrong
I longed for you my whole life long
I ached to be with you so very
much
To hear your voice to feel your
touch
And now at last we've met once
more
In love again as we were before
More in love than we could have
ever supposed
Together again life's circle closed
 
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Life is infinitely
stranger than anything
which the mind of man
could invent. We would
not dare to conceive the
things which are really mere
commonplaces of existence. If we
could fly out of that window hand
in hand, hover over this great city,
gently remove the roofs, and and
peep in at the queer things which
are going on, the strange
coincidences, the plannings, the
cross-purposes, the wonderful
chains of events, working through
generations, and leading to the
most outre results, it would make
all fiction with its conventionalities
and foreseen conclusions most stale
and unprofitable

 
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When i started reading this thriller nothing made sense, but as i advanced in the pages i could not let go until i read the last word.
enjoy a thrilling drama and historical event.Dan Brown surely created a masterpiece.
An ancient secret brotherhood.
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
An unthinkable target...


When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati... the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has surfaced from the shadows to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy... the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces he has hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.

Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair... a secret location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.

 
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The house of medici is one of the well known families in european history.
A Florentine family, the members of which, having acquired great wealth as bankers, rose in a few generations to be first the unofficial rulers of the republic of Florence and afterwards the recognized sovereigns of Tuscany.

Cosimo the Elder
Born 1389, died 1 August, 1464, the founder of their power and so-called "Padre della Patria", was the son of Giovanni di Averardo de' Medici, the richest banker in Italy. He obtained the virtual lordship of Florence in 1434 by the overthrow and expulsion of the leaders of the oligarchical faction of the Albizzi. While maintaining republican forms and institutions, he held the government by banishing his opponents and concentrating the chief magistracies in the hands of his own adherents. His foreign policy, which became traditional with the Medici throughout the fifteenth century until the French invasion of 1494, aimed at establishing a balance of power between the five chief states of the Italian peninsula, by allying Florence with Milan and maintaining friendly relations with Naples, to counterpoise the similar understanding existing between Rome and Venice. He was a munificent and discerning patron of art and letters, a thorough humanist, and through Marsilio Ficino, the founder of the famous Neo-Platonic academy. Sincerely devoted to religion in his latter days, he was closely associated with St. Antoninus and with the Dominican friars of San Marco, his favourite foundation. His son and successor, Piero il Gottoso, the husband of Lucrezia Tornabuoni, a man of magnanimous character but whose activities were crippled by illness, contented himself with following in his footsteps.

Lorenzo and Giuliano
On Piero's death in 1469, his sons Lorenzo, b. 1449, d. 8 April, 1492, and Giuliano, b. 1453, d. 26 April, 1478, succeeded to his power. The latter, a genial youth with no particular aptitude for politics, was murdered in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478, leaving an illegitimate son Giulio, who afterwards became Pope Clement VII. Among those executed for their share in the conspiracy was the Archbishop of Pisa. A war with Pope Sixtus IV and King Ferrante of Naples followed, in which Florence was hard pressed, until, Lorenzo, as Machiavelli says, "exposed his own life to restore peace to his country", by going in person to the Neapolitan sovereign to obtain favourable terms, in 1480. Henceforth until his death Lorenzo was undisputed master of Florence and her dominions, and, while continuing and developing the foreign and domestic policy of his grandfather, he greatly extended the Medicean influence throughout Italy. His skillful diplomacy was directed to maintaining the peace of the peninsula, and keeping the five chief states united in the face of the growing danger of an invasion from beyond the Alps. Guicciardini writes of him that it would not have been possible for Florence to have had a better or a more pleasant tyrant, and certainly the world has seen no more splendid a patron of artists and scholars. The poets, Pulci and Poliziano, the philosopher and mystic, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and a whole galaxy of great artists, such as Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, shed glory over his reign.

Posterity has agreed to call Lorenzo "the Magnificent", but this is, in part, a misunderstanding of the Italian title "magnifico", which was given to all the members of his family, and, indeed, during the fifteenth century, applied to most persons of importance in Italy to whom the higher title of "Excellence" did not pertain. Lorenzo sums up the finest culture of the early Renaissance in his own person. Unlike many of the humanists of his epoch, he thoroughly appreciated the great Italian classics of the two preceding centuries; in his youth he wrote a famous epistle on the subject to Federigo of Aragon, which accompanied a collection of early Italian lyrics. His own poems in the vernacular rank very high in the literature of the fifteenth century. They are remarkably varied in style and subject, ranging from Petrarcan canzoni and sonnets with a prose commentary in imitation of the "Vita Nuova" to the semiparody of Dante entitled "I Beoni". His canzoni a ballo, the popular dancing songs of the Florentines, have the true lyrical note. Especially admirable are his compositions in ottava rima: the "Caccia col Falcone", with its keen feeling for nature; the "Ambra", a mythological fable of the Florentine country-side; and the "Nencia da Barberino", an idyllic picture of rustic love. His "Altercazione", six cantos in terza rima, discusses the nature of true felicity, and closes in an impressive prayer to God, somewhat Platonic in tone. To purely religious poetry belong his "Laude", and a miracle-play, the "Rapresentazione di san Giovanni e san Paolo", with a curiously modern appreciation of the Emperor Julian. In striking contrast to these are his carnival-songs, canti carnascialeschi, so immoral as to lend colour to the accusation that he strove to undermine the morality of the Florentines in order the more easily to enslave them.

At the close of his life, Lorenzo was brought into conflict with Savonarola, but the legend of the latter refusing him absolution on his deathbed unless he restored liberty to Florence is now generally rejected by historians. By his wife, Clarice Orsini, Lorenzo had three sons: Piero, Giuliano, and Giovanni, of whom the third rose to the papacy as Leo X. Although a man of immoral life, his relations with his family show him under a favourable aspect, and, in a letter from one of the ladies of the Mantuan court, a charming account is given of how, on his way to the congress of Cremona in 1483, Lorenzo visited the Gonzaga children and sat among them in their nursery.

Piero di Lorenzo
Lorenzo's eldest son, b. 1471, d. 1503, a licentious youth with none of his father's ability, proved a most incompetent ruler, and, on the French invasion of 1494, he was expelled from Florence by the people, led by the patriotic Piero Capponi. After several fruitless attempts to recover his position, he was drowned at the battle of the Garigliano while serving in the French army. On the restoration of the Medici in 1512, his son Lorenzo was made ruler of Florence. With him, in 1519, the legitimate male descent of Cosimo the Elder came to an end. By his wife, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, he was the father of Caterina de' Medici, afterwards Queen of France.

The Medici were again expelled from Florence, and the republic once more established, in 1527. But in 1530, after the famous siege, the city was compelled to surrender to the imperial forces, and Charles V made Alessandro de' Medici, an illegitimate son of the younger Lorenzo, hereditary head of the Florentine government. All republican forms and offices were swept away, and Alessandro ruled as duke until, in 1537, he was assassinated by his kinsman, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who fled to Venice without attempting either to assert his own claims to the succession or to restore the republican regime.

Cosimo de' Medici
Usually known as Cosimo I, b. 1519, d. 1574, was the descendant of a brother of Cosimo the Elder and representative of the younger Medicean line. He was the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, the great soldier, and Maria Salviati. On the murder of Alessandro, he came into Florence, and was formally recognized as head of the government both by the citizens and by the emperor. At the outset, with the aid of imperial troops, he crushed the last efforts of the republicans, who were led by Baccio Valori and Filippo Strozzi. Various constitutional checks were at first put upon him, but these he soon discarded, and openly used the title of Duke of Florence. Although ruthless and implacable, he proved himself the ablest Italian ruler of the sixteenth century, and gave a permanent form to the government of Florence, finally developing the shapeless remains of the fallen republic into a modern monarchical state. He thoroughly reorganized the laws and administration, created a small but efficient fleet to defend the shores of Tuscany, and raised a national army out of the old Florentine militia. He married a Spanish wife, the noble and virtuous Eleonora da Toledo, and in foreign affairs leaned to a large extent upon Spain, by which power, however, he was prevented from accepting the crown of Corsica. His great desire of absorbing the neighbouring republics of Lucca and Siena into his dominions was fulfilled only the case of the latter state; he conquered Siena in 1555, and in 1557 received it as a fief from the King of Spain.

Tradition has invested Cosimo's name with a series of horrible domestic crimes and tragedies, all of which have been completely disproved by recent research. After the death of Eleonora da Toledo in 1562, he appears to have abandoned himself to vice. A few years later he married his mistress, Cammilla Martelli. In 1570 he was crowned in Rome by Pius V as Grand Duke of Tuscany, thereby taking place among the sovereigns of Europe. The title was confirmed to his son and successor, Francis I, in 1575, by the Emperor Maximilian II. Cosimo's descendants reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany in an unbroken line until 1737, when, on the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici, their dominions passed to the House of Austria

 
AN INTRODUCTION
The Jack the Ripper murders occurred in the East End of London in 1888 and, although the Whitechapel Murderer was only a threat to a very small section of the community in a relatively small part of London, the murders had a huge impact on society as a whole.

WHY IS JACK THE RIPPER SO FAMOUS?
One of the things that puzzles many people about this particular long ago murder spree is quite why the crimes are still so famous, even though over a hundred and twenty years have elapsed since they occurred.

If, as is generally believed, Jack the ripper had only five victims then he wasn't a particularly prolific murderer compared to many who have come since, and the fact that his so-called reign of terror lasted a mere twelve or so weeks means that he wasn't at large for a particularly long period of time. Yet there is little doubt that he is the world's most famous serial killer. Why should this be?

Several factors combined to help make this series of crimes famous all over the world. Not least amongst them was the fact that the newspapers of the day gave a huge amount of coverage to the crimes and provided their readers with daily updates on them with the result that Jack the Ripper effectively became a menacing media figure.

Secondly, the area in which the killings occurred was perceived as being a hotbed of vice and villainy, and a breeding ground for social unrest, squalor and disease. The Whitechapel Murderer, in the eyes of the wider Victorian society, came to be seen as the personification of all the evils with which the East End of London was associated.

Finally, there was, of course, the name by which the killer came to be known - Jack the Ripper. It was this name - which was probably the invention of a journalist - that had the effect of turning five sordid East End murders into an international phenomenon and of catapulting the unknown miscreant responsible into the realm of legend.

HOW MANY VICTIMS WERE THERE?
It is generally believed that there were five victims of Jack the Ripper. They were:-

  • Mary Nichols, murdered on 31st August 1888.
  • Annie Chapman, murdered on 8th September 1888.
  • Elizabeth Stride, murdered on 30th September 1888.
  • Catherine Eddowes, also murdered on 30th September 1888.
  • Mary Kelly, murdered on 9th November 1888.
EAST END HISTORY
But the Jack the Ripper murders also serve as a reminder of a not too distant past when a whole section of London society fought a daily battle against poverty and starvation.

As such they provide us with a window through which we can look back on a bygone age when the eyes of the world were focussed on the daily lives and struggles of the East Enders who were most affected by the crimes.

Thanks to newspaper reportage on the case, coupled with the records and musings of philanthropists and reformers who wished to bring the plight of the East End's poor to the attention of the wider Victorian society, we have an unrivalled opportunity to, literally, peer into the very streets where the Whitechapel Murders occurred at the time they were occurring and to observe the impact the killings had on those who dwelt in the area.

THE POLICE INVESTIGATION
Of course the murders were also the focus of a huge criminal investigation that saw the Victorian police pit their wits against a lone assassin who was perpetrating his crimes in one of London's most densely populated and crime ridden quarters.

As a result of official reports and the efforts of journalists to keep abreast of the progress (or, perhaps more accurately, lack of progress) that the police investigation was making, we are able watch that investigation unfolding. We can analyze the methods that the police used to try and track the killer and compare them with the methods that the police would use today. We can also ask - and hopefully answer - the question why didn't the police catch Jack the Ripper?

The Victorian police faced numerous problems as they raced against time to catch the killer before he could kill again. A major one was the labyrinth-like layout of the area where the murders were occurring, made up as it was of lots of tiny passageways and alleyways, few of which were lit by night. And, of course, the detectives hunting the killer were hampered by the fact that criminology and forensics were very much in their infancy.

JACK THE RIPPER SUSPECTS
Despite the fact that no-one was ever brought to justice or charged with the crimes, there have, over the years, been more than a hundred named suspects who may or may not have been Jack the Ripper. Some of those suspects are fascinating. Others are down right ridiculous.

Yet one thing is certain. No matter how unlikely the names of those that appear on the ever expanding list of suspects might be, the on going challenge of "nailing" the ripper has helped keep this series of crimes at the forefront of criminal and social history for over 120 years.

PRESS COVERAGE OF THE CASE
One of the more intriguing aspects of the Jack the Ripper murders is the amount of worldwide newspaper coverage that they generated. Journalists converged on the streets of the East End to report on the murders, and were often appalled by the diabolical living conditions that they encountered.

Pages and pages were given over to reporting on the inquests into the deaths of the victims; local residents were interviewed at length; police officers were followed, and sometimes even bribed, as reporters endeavoured to secure that all too elusive exclusive that might help sell more newspapers.

The authorities were subjected to a constant barrage of press criticism, both for the inability of the police to bring the killer to justice, and the appalling social conditions that they had allowed to develop unchecked right on the doorstep of the City of London, the wealthiest square mile on earth.

Plus, most importantly, and as mentioned earlier, the name Jack the Ripper was most probably the invention of a journalist.

JACK THE RIPPER'S LONDON TODAY
Given the passage of 125 years since the murders occurred it's amazing how much of the area has managed to survive since 1888.

Although the murders sites themselves have long since vanished, there are numerous streets and buildings that have survived and which are, more or less, the same now as they were in the late 19th century.

The Ten Bells Pub, which is linked to several of the victims is still going strong - albeit it is trying to distance itself from its ripper related past.

The Frying Pan Pub, where Mary Nichols drank away her doss money, shortly before being murdered, is now the Sheraz Indian restaurant.

The doorway in Goulston Street, where the murderer deposited his only clue, is now the take away counter of the Happy Days Fish and Chip Shop.

People still make their way to St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leyton to lay flowers on the grave of Mary Kelly and to spend a few moments in quiet contemplation
 
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10. ELAINA SMITH - COUNSELING QUEEN
When it comes to advise who do you turn to? Your family? Friends? Why not a little girl? That’s what British wonder Elaina Smith is good at after all. Smith was only seven years old in 2011 when her local radio station Mercia FM in Coventry, West Midlands, offered her a job after she called up a woman and offered her advice on how to cope with a break up. Her mother said they were listening to the radio one morning when the presenter asked for people’s advice and Elaina said she wanted to phone in. Her advice? Go bowling with friends and drink a mug of milk. Mercia was impressed and offered Elaina a weekly breakfast slot. Another listener wrote to Elaina asking how to get a man. Her advice? “Shake your booty on the dance floor and listen to High School Musical.”

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9. AINAN CELESTE CAWLEY - LABLORD
Sometimes the right ingredients just come together to create a Chemistry genius. Ainan Cawley of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, now 13 years old, was just six years old when he gave a Science lecture about acid and alkaloids at a Singapore school. He was only seven years old when he passed the Chemistry O level exam, a test meant for teens aged 16 and up. The following year he enrolled in the Singapore Polytechnic, becoming the world’s youngest student ever to take up a third-year tertiary module. What’s the secret to his success? There seems to be none. His father said he never taught the boy repetitively or regimented his training.

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8. AELITA ANDRE - PAINTING PRODIGY
It took Picasso years to become an artist, for Australian Aelita Andre, art came when she was barely two years old in 2010. She got an opportunity to show her paintings when Mark Jamieson, the director of Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, was asked by a photographer to take a look at the work of another artist. Jamieson liked what he saw and agreed to include it in a group show. He would later find out the paintings were done by a two-year-old. Nevertheless, Brunswick proceeded with the exhibition. The exhibit sent critics talking. Some are now calling her the next Pablo Picasso or Jackson Pollock.

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7. CLEOPATRA STRATAN - SINGING SENSATION
At three years old Cleopatra Stratan became the youngest person in the world to become a singer. We don’t just mean a song or two every now and then. We mean albums, an MTV award and a two-hour live performance in front of an audience. Born in, 2002 in Chisinau, Moldova, Stratan is the daughter of Moldovan-Romanian singer, Pavel Stratan. Her mother discovered she had singing talent one day while they were recording a song when she grabbed the microphone and started signing along with her mother. The recording people loved it and recorded a song with her on lead vocals. The rest, as they say, is history. Some of her songs have already been translated into English, Spanish and Japanese.

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6. ELISA TAN ROBERTS - MENSA MASTER
Einstein’s IQ was 160, Elise Roberts’ IQ was 156 and that was when she was just two years old. Now seven years old, Roberts became the youngest member of Mensa, beating the record previously held by a three-year-old boy. Her genius was already evident at a very young age, when she was just five months old she started speaking. When she was eight months she started walking and was running by the time she was 10 months. Not quite one year old she could already recognize her written name, Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist education psychologist, put her through a complex, 45-minute IQ test just to silence skeptics before concluding that she was indeed gifted.


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5. MICHEAL KEVIN KEARNEY - TEEN TEACHER
While some of us can’t be bothered to take up higher learning, Michael Kearney must have been impatient. He earned his first degree when he was only 10 years old. He must have always been in a hurry; he spoke for the first time when he was four months old. At six months old he was able to tell his pediatrician what precisely ailed him and within 10 months old he was able to read. When he was four years old he was given a diagnostic test for the Johns Hopkins precocious math program and got a perfect score. He finished high school at six, then enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College. In 2008, Kearney became the world’s youngest college graduate at the age of 10 with a degree in Anthropology. He started teaching when he was 17. Did we mention he also won $1,000,000 in ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’

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4. AKRIT JASWAL - SAVVY SURGEON
While most seven-year-olds were playing around pretending they were doctors, Akrit Jaswal was performing actual surgery. Born in 1993, his mother said Akrit skipped the toddler stage and started walking. He started speaking in his 10th month and was reportedly reading Shakespeare by the age of five. His love for science and anatomy was noticed by doctors who let him observe surgeries. He was inspired and soon learned all he could about surgery. His moment came when a poor family who could not afford surgery asked him to operate on their daughter. He agreed, the operation was a success and he became widely celebrated.

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3. GREGORY SMITH - NOBEL NOMINEE
What was your greatest achievement by the time you were age 12? Did you win an inter-state quiz bowl? Did you score the winning homerun for your baseball team? Did you get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? Gregory Smith did. Another early starter, Smith could read when he was 10 and enrolled in a university when he was 10. He also founded the International Youth Advocates, an organization promoting peace and understanding among youths throughout the world. He has met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and for USSR head Mikhail Gorbachev and has also addressed the UN Assembly. It was that and other advocacies that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize nomination four times. While he has not won the award yet there is no need for him to worry, he’s still young. He just turned 23.

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2. FABIANO LUIGI - CHESS CHAMP
Born in 1992, in Miami, Florida, Fabiano Caruana became the world’s youngest chess grandmaster at the age of 14. He is of Italian blood, eight generation of his family were born and lived in Italy before his family moved to the U.S. He discovered he was good at chess when he was only five years old and started playing in tournaments. Up to the age of twelve he was occasionally traveling between the U.S., Europe and South America to take part in tournaments. In 2007 Caruana became a grandmaster, the youngest in the history of both Italy and the U.S. Today he still plays chess and has a house in Europe and another in Tarpon Springs, Florida

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1. KIM UNG-YONG - LEARNING LEADER
So where were we? Elise Roberts’ IQ was 156, Einstein’s IQ was 160, this guy’s IQ is 210. Born in 1962, Korean Kim Ung-Young just may be the smartest man alive today.  At three years old Kim was a guest student of Physics at the Hanyang University. At four he was already able to read in several languages; Korean, Japanese, German and English. At five he was already able to solve complex Calculus problems. Before he was 10 he was already speaking eight languages; Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, German, English and Japanese.

When he seven he was invited to the U.S.A. by NASA and was able to get his Ph.D. in Physics at the Colorado State University before he turned 15. He later returned to Korea where he decided to switch from Physics to civil engineering and eventually got a doctorate in that field. He was offered the chance to study at the most prestigious universities in Korea, but Kim instead chose to attend a provincial university. As of 2007 he served as adjunct faculty at Chungbuk National University. Guinness still lists him as the person with the highest IQ in the world.