Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. Lesbian, as a concept, is used to differentiate women with a shared sexual orientation, and the concept is a 20th-century construct. Throughout history, women have not had the freedom or independence to pursue homosexual relationships where men have. However, they also have not met the same harsh punishment in some societies as homosexual men. In the past, lesbian relationships were sometimes regarded as harmless unless the participants attempted to pursue privileges traditionally enjoyed by their peers. As a result, little in history has been documented to give an accurate description of how female homosexuality has been expressed. When early sexologists in the late 19th century began to categorize and describe homosexual behavior, hampered by a lack of knowledge about lesbianism or women's sexuality, they distinguished lesbians as women who did not adhere to female gender roles and designated them mentally ill. Women in homosexual relationships responded to this designation either by hiding their personal lives or accepting the label of outcast and creating a subculture and identity that developed in Europe and the United States. Women exhibit sexual fluidity; some women who engage in homosexual behavior may reject identifying as lesbian or as bisexual. Greater understanding of women's sexuality has led to three components to identifying lesbians: sexual behavior, sexual desire, or sexual identity.

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An Australian Light Horse encampment on Mount Olivet and Mount Scopus near Jerusalem, 1918. Australian Light Horse were mounted troops with characteristics of both cavalry and mounted infantry who served during the Second Boer War and World War I. A number of Australian light horse units are still in existence today, most notably of the 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland Mounted Infantry), now a light armoured unit.

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• ... that an 1851 match between Voltigeur and The Flying Dutchman (see painting) drew 100,000 spectators, the largest crowd at the Knavesmire since 1759?
• ... that in Egyptian mythology, the Eye of Ra slaughtered masses of people, got drunk, ran away from her owner, and was brought back by her husband?
• ... that over three million Chinese military and civilian personnel served in Korea during the Korean War?

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• 2 August 2009 - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society reached The New York Times Best Seller list
• 17 August 2011 - Organization of the Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society
• 24 August 1963 - Malaysian Red Crescent Society admitted as a member of the League of Red Cross Societies

“ No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. ” — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)

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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian pronunciation: [leoˈnardo da ˈvintʃi] pronunciation) (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time. Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded him by Francis I. Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo. (Full article...)

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