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'Heritage' is what we inherit from the past, live with in the present and then pass on to our children or future generation. Our unique source of life and inspiration is our cultural and natural heritage. When we speak of 'World Heritage', it indicates places and sites that we inherited from the past and pass on to the future generation of the entire world.
The 'Shat Gambuj Mosque' in Bagerhat is such a heritage. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. Originally, the historic Mosque City was known as 'Khalifatabad'. It is situated at the outskirts of Bagerhat town--not very far from the dense mangrove forest of the Sundarbans. Khalifatabad was a Muslim colony. It was founded by the Turkish general, a saint warrior Ulugh Khan Jahan in the 15th century. The infrastructure of the city reveals significant technical skills in many mosques as well as early Islamic monuments. Baked bricks were used for the construction of the buildings. The planning of the city was dominated by the tradition of Islamic architecture and the decorations were a combination of Mughal and Turkish architecture.
Khan Jahan built a network of roads, bridges, public buildings and reservoirs to make the city habitable. There were about 360 mosques in the city. Among them the most remarkable is the multi-domed Shat Gombuj Mosque. The mosque is unique in the sense that it has 60 pillars that support the roof, with 77 low height domes. The 4 towers at 4 corners have smaller domes at the top as well. The vast prayer hall has 11 arched doorways on the east and 7 each on the north and south for light and ventilation. It has 7 aisles running along the length of the mosque and 11 deep curves between the slender stone columns. These columns support the curving arches created by the domes. The thickness of the arches is 6 feet and have slightly narrowing hollow and round wall.
The west wall in the interior has 11 'mihrabs' (niche in mosque pointing towards Makkah). These mihrabs are decorated with stonework and terracotta. The floor of the mosque is made of brick.
Besides being used as a prayer hall, Khan Jahan used the mosque as his court too. Today, it is one of the greatest tourist attractions and one of the best architectural beauties of Bangladesh.
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Lake Baikal is the deepest and one of the biggest and most ancient lakes of the world. It is situated almost in the centre of Asia. Lake Baikal is a gigantic bowl set at 445 meters above sea level. This grand, enormous, unusual and charming miracle of nature is located in the south of Eastern Siberia, in the Buryat Autonomous Republic and region of Irkutsk, Russia.
The lake covers 31,500 sq km. It is 636 km long and an average of 48 km wide. The widest point of the lake is 79.4 km. The water basin occupies 557,000 sq km. and contains 23,000 cu km. (cubic kilometer) of water, which is about one fifth of the world's reserves of fresh surface water.
The average water level in the lake is never higher than 456 m. The average depth of Lake Baikal is 730 m, and its maximum depth in the middle is 1,620 m. It would take about one year for all the rivers of the world to fill Baikal's basin, and would take four hundred years for all the rivers, streams and brooks now flowing into Siberian lake sea to do the same.
There are hot springs in the surrounding area of Lake Baikal. The quality of the water of these springs is excellent. The lake acts as a powerful generator and bio filter producing this water. Baikal is a stormy lake. Autumn is the most stormy time. The wind blows in various directions.
The weather depends on the wind. If it is blowing from the north, the weather is bright and sunny. The water of the lake looks green and dark blue. But if the winds get stronger, Baikal turns black, waves rising high with white crest. The beauty of Lake Baikal is exceptional.
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A car mechanic Paul Jobs and his wife Clara jobs adopted Steve who was abandoned at birth. Paul and Clara loved Steve very much. They made him feel that he was 'chosen' and very 'special'.
One of his colleagues, Del Yocam said about Steve, "I think his desire for complete control of whatever he makes derives directly from his personality and from the fact that he was abandoned at birth."
Jobs' mother taught him how to read and write before he went to the elementary school. So when he went to school, he found out that he knew everything that the teachers were teaching. He got bored and played pranks to keep himself busy. This continued for the first few years. It was clear from his behaviour that he could not accept other people's authority. He said, "I encountered authority of a different kind that I have never encountered before, and I did not like it."
A turning point came when he was in grade four. His teacher Imogene Hill watched him very closely for sometime and soon found out how to handle him and get things done by him. In order to get things done she used to give him money and food. One day after school, she gave Jobs a workbook with math problems in it. She said, "I want you to take it home and do this." She showed Jobs a huge lollipop and said, "When you are done with it, if you get it mostly right, I will give you this and five dollars."
Within two days, Jobs solved the math problem and returned the book to his teacher. This continued for a couple of months and Jobs enjoyed learning so much that he did not need any return. Also he liked his teacher very much and wanted to please her.
In Ms. Hill's class, Jobs felt he was special. At the end of the fourth grade, Jobs did very well. It was clear not only to Jobs and his parents but also to the teachers that he was exceptionally intelligent. The school proposed that Jobs should skip two classes and go into seventh grade. This would mean that Jobs would find the study challenging and he would be motivated to study. His parents had him skip only one grade.