Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".

The first film in the series, Star Wars (later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope), was released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans, compared to the original trilogy. All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $4.38 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series. The series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise." In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.

Princess Leia

Princess Leia Organa (born Leia Skywalker), later known as General Leia Organa, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise, portrayed in films by Carrie Fisher. Introduced in the original Star Wars film (1977), Leia is princess of the planet Alderaan, a member of the Imperial Senate and an agent of the Rebel Alliance. She thwarts the sinister Sith Lord Darth Vader and helps bring about the destruction of the Empire's cataclysmic weapon, the Death Star. In The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Leia commands a Rebel base and evades Vader as she falls in love with the smuggler Han Solo. In Return of the Jedi (1983), Leia leads the operation to rescue Han from the alien crime lord Jabba the Hutt, and is revealed to be Vader's daughter and the twin sister of Luke Skywalker. The prequel film Revenge of the Sith (2005) establishes that the twins' mother is Senator (and former queen) Padmé Amidala of Naboo, who dies after childbirth. Leia is adopted by Senator Bail and Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan. In The Force Awakens (2015), Leia is a general in the Resistance against the First Order and has a son, Ben, with Han.

Lissa Explains it All

LissaExplains.com is a Web site created by Alyssa "Lissa" Daniels (born 1986), a girl from Orlando, Florida, to teach people, especially children, how to make their own Web sites. She was 11 years old when she set up the first site in 1997, and is currently a university junior in Florida. Her site has taught many people how to create a Web site by writing their own HTML without the use of Web page creators. The web site includes tutorials and an internet forum.

History

Lissa had trouble remembering all of the HTML codes that she needed to create her site, so she created a page which listed HTML codes. Eventually more people noticed this page, and as she got more requests for the URL, she decided she would make the site public, first publishing it at GeoCities. When she was 12 years old, she decided to purchase a domain name for her site in 1998, and renamed the site "Lissa Explains it All."

Lissa was approached in August 1999 by Ronald L. Wagner, columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He had seen her site online and wanted to feature Lissa and her site in his weekly column, Family PC Fun. The article was published on September 26, 1999. At the time, her site was using large amounts of bandwidth and the monthly hosting cost for her site was beginning to be too expensive for her to keep it online. She discussed this with Ronald, who suggested that she contact a few internet advertising agencies to see if they would like to advertise on her site. She was accepted by one agency, and soon started earning enough money through advertising to keep Lissa Explains it All online.

Princess

Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin princeps, meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince or for the daughters of a king or sovereign prince.

Princess as a substantive title

The titles of some princesses hold their titles are reigning monarchs of principalities. There have been fewer instances of reigning princesses than reigning princes as most principalities excluded women from inheriting the throne. Examples of princesses regnant have included Constance of Antioch, princess regnant of Antioch in the 12th century. As the President of France, an office for which women are eligible, is ex-officio co-Prince of Andorra, Andorra could theoretically be ruled by a co-Princess.

Princess as a courtesy title

Descendants of monarchs

For many centuries, the title "princess" was not regularly used for a monarch's daughter, who, In English, might simply be called "Lady". Old English had no female equivalent of "prince", "earl", or any royal or noble title aside from queen. Royal women were simply addressed or referred to as "The Lady [Firstname]". For example, Elizabeth and Mary, daughters of Henry VIII of England were often simply referred to as "the Ladies Elizabeth and Mary". This practice, however, was not consistent. In the marriage contract between Prince George of Denmark and Anne, daughter of James I of Great Britain, Anne is referred to as "The Princess Anne".

Star

A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.

For at least a portion of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Once the hydrogen in the core of a star is nearly exhausted, almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the star's lifetime and, for some stars, by supernova nucleosynthesis when it explodes. Near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity (chemical composition), and many other properties of a star by observing its motion through space, luminosity, and spectrum respectively. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant of its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the star's environment affects its rotation and movement. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (H–R diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined.