Maharashtra is a state in the western and central peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdivision globally. It was formed on 1 May 1960 by splitting the bilingual Bombay State, which had existed since 1956, into majority Marathi-speaking Maharashtra and Gujarati-speaking Gujarat as a result of nationwide organization of states on the basis of language. Maharashtra is divided into 6 divisions and 36 districts, with the state capital being Mumbai, the most populous urban area in India, and Nagpur serving as the winter capital, also hosts the winter session of the state legislature. Godavari and Krishna are the two major rivers in the state. Marathi is the most widely spoken language and is the state's only official language. The forest constitutes 16.47 per cent of the state's geographical area. Out of the total cultivable land in the state, about 60 per cent is used for grain crops in the Deccan region, rice in coastal Konkan and other high rainfall areas.
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city.
Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the best comedians of all time.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is one of two major political parties in India, along with the Indian National Congress. It has been the ruling political party of the Republic of India since 2014 under its prime minister, Narendra Modi. The BJP is a right-wing party, and its policy has historically reflected Hindu nationalist positions. It has close ideological and organisational links to the much older Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). As of 17 February 2022, it is the country's largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state legislatures.
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi. He later appeared in the independent coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused (1993) and various Kevin Smith films, including Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997) and Dogma (1999). Affleck gained wider recognition when he and childhood friend Matt Damon won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing Good Will Hunting (1997), which they also starred in. He then established himself as a leading man in studio films, including the disaster film Armageddon (1998), the war drama Pearl Harbor (2001), and the thrillers The Sum of All Fears and Changing Lanes.
Narendra Damodardas Modi is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from Varanasi. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation. He is the first prime minister to have been born after India's independence in 1947 and the second prime minister not belonging to the Indian National Congress to have won two consecutive majorities in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Indian of parliament. He is also the longest serving prime minister from a non-congress party.
Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Premier League club Manchester United and captains the Portugal national team. Often considered the best player in the world and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Ronaldo has won five Ballon d'Or awards and four European Golden Shoes, the most by a European player. He has won 32 trophies in his career, including seven league titles, five UEFA Champions Leagues, one UEFA European Championship, and one UEFA Nations League. Ronaldo holds the records for most appearances (183), most goals (140), and assists (42) in the Champions League, most goals in the European Championship (14), most international goals by a male player (115), and most international appearances by a European male (186). He is one of the few players to have made over 1,100 professional career appearances, and has scored over 800 official senior career goals for club and country.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in 2007. It was the second time that Brazil staged the competition, the first being in 1950, and the fifth time that it was held in South America. Fans and pundits alike consider this edition of the World Cup to be one of the greatest ever held.
The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same name. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton. It is the first installment in The Godfather trilogy. The story, spanning from 1945 to 1955, chronicles the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando), focusing on the transformation of his youngest son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss.
Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2010, and as the Minister of Trade and Economic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine's National Bank. He was elected president on 25 May 2014, receiving 54.7% of the votes cast in the first round, thus winning outright and avoiding a run-off. During his presidency, Poroshenko led the country through the first phase of the War in Donbass, pushing the insurgent rebel forces deeper into the Donbas Region. He began the process of integration with the European Union by signing the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.
Angelina Jolie is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards, she has been named Hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times.
The Islamic State, at times known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and also referred to by its Arabic-language acronym Daesh, is an Islamist militant jihadist group and former unrecognized quasi-state that follows a Salafi jihadist doctrine based on the Sunni branch of Islam. It was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 and gained global prominence in 2014, when it drove Iraqi security forces out of key cities during the Anbar campaign, which was followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre.
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television judge. She is known for her influence on the pop sound and style of the 2010s. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her commercially unsuccessful debut album, Katy Hudson (2001), under Red Hill Records. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, adopting the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. With producers Glen Ballard and Greg Wells, she recorded an unreleased album titled Fingerprints while signed to Java Records and then Columbia Records before being dropped. After this, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.
Bitcoin (₿) is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries. Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. The cryptocurrency was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The currency began use in 2009 when its implementation was released as open-source software.
The Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan Revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests, when deadly clashes between protesters and the security forces in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. It began in February 2014 following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, and initially focused on the status of Crimea and parts of the Donbas, internationally recognised as part of Ukraine. The first eight years of the conflict included the Russian annexation of Crimea (2014) and the war in Donbas (2014–present) between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists, as well as naval incidents, cyberwarfare, and political tensions. Following a Russian military build-up on the Russia–Ukraine border from late 2021, the conflict expanded significantly when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport. The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER registered as 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea. The aircraft was lost from ATC radar screens minutes later, but was tracked by military radar for another hour, deviating westwards from its planned flight path, crossing the Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea. It left radar range 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Penang Island in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia.
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This event took place in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and is part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Donetsk People's Republic is a self-proclaimed breakaway state located in Ukraine, formed on 7 April 2014. The capital city and largest city within the DPR is Donetsk. Denis Pushilin has served as the DPR head of state since 2018.
The war in Donbas, or the Donbas War, is an armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine, part of the broader Russo-Ukrainian War. In March 2014, immediately following the Euromaidan protest movement and subsequent Revolution of Dignity, protests by pro-Russian, anti-government separatist groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, collectively called the Donbas. These demonstrations began around the same time as Russia's annexation of Crimea, and were part of wider pro-Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine. Declaring the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, armed Russian-backed separatist groups seized government buildings throughout the Donbas, leading to armed conflict with the Ukrainian government forces.
