USS New Jersey (BB-62)

USS New Jersey (BB-62; "Big J" or "Black Dragon") is an Iowa-class battleship, and was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the US state of New Jersey. New Jersey earned more battle stars for combat actions than the other three completed Iowa-class battleships, and was the only US battleship providing gunfire support during the Vietnam War.

During World War II, New Jersey shelled targets on Guam and Okinawa, and screened aircraft carriers conducting raids in the Marshall Islands. During the Korean War, she was involved in raids up and down the North Korean coast, after which she was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet". She was briefly reactivated in 1968 and sent to Vietnam to support US troops before returning to the mothball fleet in 1969. Reactivated once more in the 1980s as part of the 600-ship Navy program, New Jersey was modernized to carry missiles and recommissioned for service. In 1983, she participated in US operations during the Lebanese Civil War.

Don't Flop

Don't Flop Entertainment is the largest rap battle league based in the United Kingdom. It was founded by longtime friends Eurgh (Rowan Faife) and Cruger (Freddie Scott-Miller) in 2008. Since then, notable performers include Oshea, Sensa,Lunar C, Rizzle (of Rizzle Kicks), Tony D (of Poisonous Poets), Blizzard, Mercury Music Prize nominee Soweto Kinch, and Mark Grist. Several rappers from Don't Flop have also made appearances in the Canadian rap battle league King of the Dot, as well as youth and music broadcaster SB.TV. American rappers Illmaculate and Soul Khan have also made appearances on Don't Flop, both as rappers and judges. Don't Flop events feature all elements of hip hop culture, including cappella emcee battles, freestyle battles (sometimes over beats), grime clashes, DJ sets, live performances by hip-hop/rap artists and more recently at the 'BLAM' events there has been live art and breakdancing.

Format

Don't Flop battles are usually three rounds, with each round being 60 to 90 seconds, although significant main event battles will sometimes have 3 minute rounds, there have also been instances of unlimited rounds. A coin flip typically decides who goes first, and the emcees alternate after each round. Sometimes however, the battlers will decide between themselves off camera who will go first, and in a championship match, the Champion will decide who goes first. A panel of 3-5 judges then decide the winner (there have been instances of a 7 judge format in title matches). Up until recently, an overtime round would settle a draw. However, this has now been removed from most leagues and a winner has to be decided after the 3 standard rounds.

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele (German: [ˈʃiːlə] SHEE-lə; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and the many self-portraits the artist produced, including naked self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.

Early life

Schiele was born in 1890 in Tulln, Lower Austria. His father, Adolf Schiele, the station master of the Tulln station in the Austrian State Railways, was born in 1851 in Vienna to Karl Ludwig Schiele, a German from Ballenstedt and Aloisia Schimak; Egon Schiele's mother Marie, née Soukup, was born in 1861 in Český Krumlov (Krumau) to Johann Franz Soukup, a Czech father from Mirkovice, and Aloisia Poferl, a German Bohemian mother from Cesky Krumlov. As a child, Schiele was fascinated by trains, and would spend many hours drawing them, to the point where his father felt obliged to destroy his sketchbooks. When he was 11 years old, Schiele moved to the nearby city of Krems (and later to Klosterneuburg) to attend secondary school. To those around him, Schiele was regarded as a strange child. Shy and reserved, he did poorly at school except in athletics and drawing, and was usually in classes made up of younger pupils. He also displayed incestuous tendencies towards his younger sister Gertrude (who was known as Gerti), and his father, well aware of Egon's behaviour, was once forced to break down the door of a locked room that Egon and Gerti were in to see what they were doing (only to discover that they were developing a film). When he was sixteen he took the twelve-year-old Gerti by train to Trieste without permission and spent a night in a hotel room with her.

Furious Pete

Peter Czerwinski, better known by his stage name Furious Pete, (born November 30, 1985) is a Polish and Canadian competitive eater. Czerwinski currently holds nine Guinness World Records in eating and is also a famous YouTuber with over two million subscribers (2.5 million as of January 14, 2016).

Early life and career

Peter Czerwinski was born November 30, 1985, in Toronto. Both his parents had health issues. As a teenager, he battled against anorexia and was hospitalized at Toronto's The Hospital for Sick Children. Bodybuilding was a major factor in his recovery.

Czerwinski has a slower digestion rate than the average person's. His daily diet comprises nine balanced meals and he exercises daily. Czerwinski realized his talent in eating when he managed to beat an eating record. Thereafter, he decided to take on more eating-related challenges and post them on YouTube. In 2015 he did the Taki challenge. Having participated in more than 90 eating competitions, Czerwinski holds six Guinness World Records in competitive eating, including that for eating a whole raw onion in 43.53 seconds, devouring seventeen bananas in 2 minutes, finishing fifteen hamburgers in 10 minutes, guzzling a 750-millilitre bottle of olive oil in 60 seconds, and consuming 17 Jaffa Cakes in sixty seconds. He also participated in season one of Canada's Got Talent. For his performance, he consumed 5 hard boiled eggs, 3 pieces of Canadian bacon, 2 bananas, and a bag of milk in 51 seconds; however, he did not make it past the Toronto Auditions.