Facebook, formerly Thefacebook, is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. The website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with fellow computer science major students and his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University. Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 175 million active users worldwide.

Facebook has met with some controversy over the past few years. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria and Iran. It has also been banned at many places of work to discourage employees from wasting time using the service.Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times. It is also facing several lawsuits from a number of Zuckerberg's former classmates, who claim that Facebook had stolen their source code and other intellectual property.

Tallest People


Tallest male

  1. Robert Wadlow - Confirmed tallest male and person by Guinness World Records at 8'11.1" (272 cm). (b.1918, d.1940)
  2. John Rogan - Second tallest male ever at 8'9½" (268 cm). Tallest African American person ever. (b.1868, d.1905)
  3. Leonid Stadnyk - Tallest male living, standing 8'5½" (257 cm). Height accepted by Guinness World Records.
  4. Väinö Myllyrinne - Tallest Finn ever, standing 8'1" (247 cm). Myllyrinne was born in 1909 and died April 13, 1963.
  5. Gabriel Estêvão Monjane - Guinness World Records listed him as tallest man from 1988 to 1990 at 8'1" (246 cm). (b.1944, d.1990)
  6. Suleiman Ali Nashnush - Libyan who may be the tallest basketball player ever at 8'½" (245 cm). (b.1943 d.1991)
  7. Alexander Sizonenko - Tallest Russian living, former Soviet basketball player, standing 8' (244 cm).
  8. Sultan Kosen - Tallest basketball player ever in the history of basketball, standing 8' (242 cm). (b. 1983)
  9. Bao Xishun - Guinness World Record holder for tallest living person at 7'9" (236 cm). (b.1951)
  10. Sun Ming-Ming - Formerly second tallest living person at 7'9", now third tallest living person.
  11. Ri Myung Hun - Former basketball player with the North Korean national team. 7'-8½" tall
  12. Radhouane Charbib - Listed by Guinness World Records as tallest man before Bao Xishun and Sun Ming Ming at 7'8¾" (235 cm).
  13. George Bell - Tallest living American at 7'8" (234 cm).
  14. Yasutaka Okayama - Tallest basketball player drafted in National Basketball Association history.The 7'8" (234 cm) center from Japan was selected by the Golden State Warriors with the 10th pick of the eighth round of the 1981 Draft.
  15. Neil Fingleton - Tallest person born in UK at 7'7½" (233 cm).
  16. Alam Channa - Considered to be the tallest living man when he died in 1998 at 7'7¼" (232 cm).
  17. Manute Bol - Tied for tallest in NBA history at 7'7" (231 cm).
  18. Gheorghe Mureşan - Tied for tallest in NBA history at 7'7" (231 cm).
  19. Kenny George - Tallest Division I basketball player at 7'7" (231 cm).
  20. Jorge Gonzalez - Tallest wrestler in WWE history at 7'6" (229 cm).
  21. Yao Ming - Yao is currently the tallest player in the NBA at 7'6" (229 cm).
  22. Matthew McGrory - Tallest actor at 7'6" (229 cm) when he died.
  23. Chuck Nevitt - former NBA player at 7'5" (226 cm).

Tallest female

  1. Zeng Jinlian - Tallest Woman ever at 8'1.75" (249 cm). Suffered from spine curvature and could not stand at full height. Died at age 17.
  2. Jane Bunford - The world's tallest woman ever (until Zeng Jinlian) and possibly the world's tallest person at the time of her death in April 1922 at 7'7" (231 cm), but due to a curved spine she could not stand up straight. However, if her spine had normal curvature, she would have stood 7'11" (241 cm).
  3. Yao Defen - Claimant as tallest living female at 7'9" (234 cm). Not confirmed by Guinness World Records.
  4. Sandy Allen - Listed as tallest living female by Guinness World Records at 7'7¼" (232 cm), until her death on August 13, 2008.

Battle at Kruger

Battle at Kruger is an amateur wildlife video that depicts an unfolding confrontation between a herd of Cape Buffalo, a small pride of lions, and one or two crocodiles. The video was shot in September 2004 at a watering hole in Kruger National Park, South Africa, during a Safari guided by Frank Watts, it was filmed by videographer David Budzinski and photographer Jason Schlosberg.

After being posted on YouTube in 2007, Battle at Kruger became a viral video sensation and was widely praised for its dramatic depiction of wildlife on the African savannah. It became one of YouTube's most popular videos, with more than 38 million views and 41 thousand comments as of November 2008, and won the Best Eyewitness Video in the 2nd Annual YouTube Video Awards. The video was also the subject of an article in the 25 June 2007 issue of Time magazine, and was featured in the first episode of ABC News' i-Caught, which aired on 7 August 2007. A National Geographic documentary on the video debuted on the National Geographic Channel on 11 May 2008.

Expert commentary

Two veterinarians and animal behaviorists interviewed by Time assert that the behavior exhibited by the buffalo is not unusual. Dr. Sue McDonnell of the University of Pennsylvania (School of Veterinary Medicine) said of the video:

"The larger herd is broken down into smaller harems, with a dominant male and several females and their babies. If a youngster is threatened, both the harem males and bachelor males—which usually fight with one another—will get together to try to rescue it."

It is, however, rare for such events to be captured on film even by professional wildlife photographers. Indeed Dereck Joubert, a photographer and writer for National Geographic said of the video:

"There is no doubt at all that the tourist who shot that scene [...] was unbelievably lucky. I mean, we would've considered ourselves lucky to have had that whole scene happen in front of us.


 
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