amusingto.com

Football is the name of several similar team sports, all of which involve (to varying degrees) kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just “football” or “soccer”. However, the word football is applied to whichever form of football became most popular in each particular part of the world. Hence, the English language word “football” is applied to “gridiron football” (a name associated with the North American sports, especially American football and Canadian football), Australian football, Gaelic football, Rugby league, Rugby union, and related games. These rule variations are known as “codes”.

Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE^[1] (born Chan Kong Sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong^[2] actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, comedian, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer.

In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1970s and has appeared in over 100 films. Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons and video games. Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred.

Ukraine (pronounced /juːˈkreɪn/ ( listen) yoo-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev (Kyiv) is both the capital and the largest city of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s modern history began with the East Slavs. From at least the 9th century, Ukraine was a center of the medieval living area of the East Slavs. This state, known as Kievan Rus’, became the largest and most powerful nation in Europe,^{[citation needed]} but disintegrated in the 12th century. After the Great Northern War, Ukraine was divided among a number of regional powers, and by the 19th century, the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire, with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. After a chaotic period of incessant warfare and several attempts at independence (1917–21) following World War I and the Russian Civil War, Ukraine emerged in 1922 as one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’s territory was enlarged westward shortly before and after World War II, and southwards in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the co-founding members of the United Nations.^[5] Ukraine became independent again after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This began a period of transition to a market economy, in which Ukraine was stricken with an eight year recession.^[6] But since then, the economy experienced a high increase in GDP growth. Ukraine was caught up in the worldwide economic crisis in 2008 and the economy plunged. GDP fell 20% from spring 2008 to spring 2009, then leveled off as analysts compared the magnitude of the downturn to the worst years of economic depression during the early 1990s.^[7]

Ukraine is a unitary state composed of 24 oblasts (provinces), one autonomous republic (Crimea), and two cities with special status: Kiev, its capital, and Sevastopol, which houses the Russian Black Sea Fleet under a leasing agreement. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Since the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine continues to maintain the second largest military in Europe, after that of Russia. The country is home to 46 million people, 77.8 percent of whom are ethnic Ukrainians, with sizable minorities of Russians, Belarusians and Romanians. The Ukrainian language is the only official language in Ukraine, while Russian is also widely spoken. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which has heavily influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature and music.

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace (Rumelia) in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north.

Separating Anatolia and Thrace are the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Straits (the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles), which are commonly reckoned to delineate the boundary between Europe and Asia,^[4] thereby making Turkey a country of significant geostrategic importance.^[5][6] Ethnic Turks form the majority of the population, followed by the Kurds. The predominant religion in Turkey is Islam. The official language is Turkish.

Turkey is the successor state to the Ottoman Empire.^[7] It is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic, whose political system was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, WEOG, OSCE and the G-20 major economies.

Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005, having been an associate member of the EEC since 1963, and having reached a customs union agreement in 1995. Turkey has also fostered close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Eastern world, particularly with the rest of the Middle East and states of Central Asia, through membership in organizations such as the OIC and ECO. Turkey is classified as a developed country^[8] by the CIA and as a regional power^[9][10] by political scientists and economists worldwide.

The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakia /sloʊˈvɑːkiə/ (help·info); Slovak: Slovensko (help·info), long form Slovenská republika (help·info)) is a landlocked country in Central Europe^[3][4] with a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi). Slovakia borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava. The second largest city is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, UN, OECD, WTO, UNESCO and other international organizations.

The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the fifth and sixth centuries AD during the Migration Period. In the course of history, various parts of today’s Slovakia belonged to Samo’s Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary,^[5] the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. An independent Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of the Nazi Germany 1939–1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on January 1, 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of its federation with the Czech Republic.

Slovakia is a high-income advanced economy^[6][7] with one of the fastest growth rates in the EU and OECD^[8]. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and was the first Central European state to join the Eurozone on January 1, 2009. As of 2010, Slovakia together with Slovenia are the only former Communist nations to be part of European Union, Eurozone, Schengen Area and NATO simultaneously.

The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðərləndz/ ( listen); Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt]  ( listen)) is a constituent country in Northwestern Europe of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, comprising the majority of its territory. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east. The capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague.

The Netherlands is often called Holland, a pars pro toto, as North and South Holland are actually two of its twelve provinces (see terminology of “the Netherlands”). The word Dutch is used to refer to the people, the language, and anything pertaining to the Netherlands. This lexical difference between the noun and the adjective is a peculiarity of the English language and does not exist in the Dutch language. The adjective ‘Dutch’ is derived from the language that was spoken in the area, called ‘Diets’, which equals Middle Dutch.

Being one of the first parliamentary democracies, the Netherlands was a modern country from its inception. Among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, OECD, WTO, and has signed the Kyoto protocol. With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. The country is host to five international courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The first four are situated in The Hague as is the EU’s criminal intelligence agency Europol and judicial co-operation agency Eurojust. This has led to the city being dubbed “the world’s legal capital”.^[3]

The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 27% of its area and 60% of its population located below sea level.^[4][5] Significant land area has been gained through land reclamation and preserved through an elaborate system of polders and dikes. Much of the Netherlands is formed by the estuary of three important European rivers, which together with their distributaries form the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta. Most of the country is very flat, with the exception of foothills in the far southeast and several low-hill ranges in the central parts.

The Netherlands is a densely populated country. It is known for its windmills, tulips, clogs, delftware, gouda cheese, visual artists, bicycles, traditional values, and civil virtues such as its social tolerance. The country has more recently become known for its liberal policies toward drugs, prostitution, immigration, homosexuality, euthanasia and abortion.

The Netherlands has a capitalist market-based economy, ranking 12th of 157 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom.^[6]